Single malt whisky (and sometimes a third) time. The final spirit, called "new make spirit", generally has an alcohol content of 60 to 70%. Most new-make malt whisky is diluted to about 62.5% a.b.v. before it is placed in casks to mature. The "new-make spirit", or unaged whisky, is then placed in oak casks to mature. By law, all Scotch whisky must be aged for a minimum of three years in oak casks, though many single malts are matured for much longer. The whisky continues to develop and change as it spends time in the wood, and maturation periods of twenty years or
Scotch Malt Whisky Society distillery and second the individual cask from which the bottle was taken. For example, 2.35 represents the 35th cask acquired from distillery number two. Society bottlings are always referred to using this numerical code, rather than by the distillery name, as individual casks are unique and, therefore, may not be representative of the whisky produced by that distillery for ordinary retail. The number of bottles available from each outturn of a cask can vary – but single casks by their very nature only produce a limited amount of whisky so, more often than not, there is only a small number