Published in Distiller Magazine, Fall 2017
“Bottled in bond” is a phrase coined more than 100 years ago in the whiskey business to assure the purchaser that he was buying the real deal. Prior to Prohibition, counterfeit whiskey flooded the unregulated market, at best swindling people and at worst, killing them. Unscrupulous people trying to make a buck would add coloring and flavoring to moonshine, or worse, gasoline or other poisonous liquids, and sell it as whiskey. In an effort to protect both consumers and legitimate distillers, the federal government passed the Bottled in Bond Act of 1897.