Edinburgh firm builds corporate whisky gifts from the cask up

Most corporate whisky gifts follow a familiar and slightly dispiriting pattern. A standard bottle, a logo printed on the box, and a recipient who smiles politely before regifting it the following December. Tailored Spirits Co, an Edinburgh company founded in January 2024, has set out to do something different by refusing to sell a whisky at all. Instead it builds one to order, so that no two clients ever receive the same liquid.

For UK business travellers, that distinction matters more than it might first appear. Anyone who spends their working life shuttling between client meetings, trade shows and overseas offices knows how quickly a generic present is forgotten. A bottle that exists only because a particular company commissioned it for a particular occasion is a rather different proposition, and one that tends to stay on a recipient’s desk long after the last dram has gone.

How the bespoke corporate whisky gift is made

The business is run by three founders with clearly divided roles. Adam Harding leads on spirits, sales and strategy, Carl Johnstone looks after commercial and operations, and Tom Costello handles brand and creative. The company began, improbably enough, in the back of a plant shop in Leith, and it remains based in the Edinburgh port district today.

The idea grew out of a gap the founders had spotted in the market. Scotch is produced at enormous commercial scale, yet an individual cask owner sitting on something rare often has no clear route to turning it into a finished product. Tailored Spirits Co positions itself as the bridge, summed up in its own phrase, from the warehouse to your house.

Clients are guided through every stage of a commission. That starts with sourcing a cask and settling on the style of liquid wanted, and runs through label design to the final bottling. The firm works with private collectors, hospitality groups and premium brands, and has delivered commissions to Singapore, the United States and destinations across Europe, which will be of interest to UK companies with clients or partners overseas.

Why the packaging is treated as seriously as the whisky

Where the company goes further than most gifting suppliers is in the object itself. Bottles are chosen for the project rather than pulled from a default supply, and branding, label design, presentation materials, bespoke glassware and high end packaging all form part of the same commission. Closures can be engraved wooden corks carrying a company logo or brass stoppers, a detail that sounds small but is the one part of the bottle a recipient handles every time they pour.

That attention to the physical product echoes what we found when reviewing the Regal Sentas handcrafted candle range for corporate gifting, where presentation did much of the work. Firms already investing in decent glassware, such as the TsukiGlass Storm whisky glass we tested earlier, will recognise the logic of pairing the liquid with something worth keeping.

No tasting notes accompany this piece, and that is deliberate. Because every commission is different, any description of the whisky would only describe somebody else’s bottle. What can fairly be judged is the process, the design thinking and the quality of what arrives.

What UK businesses need to plan for

The practical point for any SME considering this route is timing. Because there is no range to choose from and no stock waiting in a warehouse to have a name added, each project starts from nothing and is built from the cask up. Lead times therefore run to months rather than weeks, so a company hoping to mark a year end, a major contract win or a client anniversary needs to open the conversation well in advance.

Companies with a client to thank, a milestone to mark or a room full of people who deserve better than another hamper can make an initial enquiry through the Tailored Spirits Co website. For background on the rules governing what can be called Scotch, the Scotch Whisky Association is the authoritative source. Edinburgh also remains one of the strongest UK cities for combining business with leisure, so a visit to Leith to discuss a commission in person is no hardship.