Darkness Whisky is a range of independently bottled single malt Scotch whisky, part of the Atom Brands group that also includes Aerolite Lyndsay, That Boutique-y Whisky Company, Rumbullion and Bathtub Gin as well as retailer Master of Malt and the group’s distribution arm, Maverick Drinks. Atom Brands is now owned by Budweiser producer AB InBev after a multimillion pound takeover in 2018.

Darkness Whisky began as a series of single cask or micro-batch experimental sherry finished bottlings for Master of Malt but now encompasses an ongoing bottling, Darkness 8-year-old, alongside a plethora of small batch Darkness Limited Editions, the latter of which are released in 50cl bottles to increase outturn.

All of Darkness Whisky’s releases have undergone the same process: sherry finishing.  Darkness take casks of bourbon-matured Scotch (and occasionally Irish) whiskies and rerack them into Octave sherry casks for a brief period of secondary maturation, giving the whiskies a richer, deeper colour and pronounced sherry flavour characteristics.

Octave casks are, as the name implies, created by breaking down a sherry butt and reassembling the staves into eight smaller casks. As a sherry butt is typically around 475-500 litres in capacity, these Octaves usually hold around 60 litres of spirit. 

A variety of different sherry butts are used for Darkness’s maturations, including Oloroso, Pedro Ximenez, Manzanilla, Palo Cortado and Moscatel, and each whisky typically spends 6 months in its Octave before vatting and bottling in the company’s distinctive chunky bottles.