Highland Cask Group Ltd · Company no. 13666515

We hold casks. We bottle what is in them.

Highland Cask Group holds and manages a stock of maturing spirit owned by Highland Management Group Limited in Hong Kong, and looks after casks belonging to a small group of existing owners. The stock is held to be bottled. We do not advertise casks and we do not approach people who have not asked — what business we take comes by referral or through the trade.

Where we stand

The short version

If you only read one part of this site, read this one.

What we do

Hold and manage the group's stock of maturing spirit. The casks are owned by Highland Management Group Limited, Hong Kong.
Manage casks for a small group of existing external owners. They hold legal title to their own casks. We act as custodian.
Arrange storage in third-party bonded warehouses and keep the records that go with it.
Select and supply casks to Highland Group for bottling under the group's own labels.
Take enquiries by referral from existing owners, and from the trade. We do not advertise and we do not approach people who have not asked.

The value of any asset can go down as well as up. That applies to a physical asset like a cask exactly as it applies to a financial one — being able to stand in a warehouse and put your hand on a cask does not make it safe. As with any asset held in the expectation of a gain, the whole of the capital put in can be lost, and a cask can turn out to be worth less than it cost or to have no buyer at all.

Cask ownership in the UK is not regulated. There is no FCA protection, no FSCS cover and no recourse to the Financial Ombudsman. If something goes wrong there is no compensation scheme behind it. Spirit in cask loses volume and strength to evaporation every year — the angels' share — and that loss is permanent. A cask can also fall below the strength at which it can legally be called whisky. Charges reduce what an owner ends up with: selling within three years carries an early sale charge of up to 18% of the price paid, 10% of any profit is taken on a sale to another owner or third party, and third-party costs of sale come out of the proceeds. A cask cannot be sold quickly the way a listed investment can.

Stock

What we hold

Scotch is the base of the book. Over time the group has also bought and held stock in other categories.

Scotch whisky
Irish whiskey
Japanese whisky
Cognac
Armagnac
Rum
Calvados
Tequila

We do not publish a live inventory. Existing owners can see their own holdings in the members area. We list categories only. We do not name distilleries or producers on this site, and we do not display their marks.

Process

How a cask moves through the business

Four stages, in order. Most of our stock is somewhere between the second and the fourth.

Acquire

Casks are bought outright and held in the group's name. Mostly Scotch, alongside the other categories above.

Store

Casks go into a third-party bonded warehouse. We do not run the warehouse. Excise duty stays suspended while the spirit is in bond, and becomes payable when it leaves for bottling.

Manage

Records, regauges, insurance, transfers of ownership and the paperwork that goes with them. This is what we do for the external owners who stayed with us.

Bottle

Casks are selected and sold to Highland Group, which bottles the spirit and takes the finished product to market. That is the point of holding the stock.

Existing cask owners

If you own a cask with us

What follows applies to every cask we hold on someone else's behalf.

Who owns the cask: You do. You hold legal title. Highland Cask Group is custodian, not owner.
Standing in your own name: If you would rather the cask stood in your name at the warehouse, we can issue a Delivery Order. Email us and we will arrange it.
Visiting the warehouse: Yes, pre-booked and with advance notice. Warehouses are working sites, so a visit has to be arranged rather than dropped in on.
Storage and insurance: Included. We pay for both and do not charge you for either. Cover terms are set out in your agreement.
Selling within three years: 18% of the price you paid in the first year, 12% in the second, 6% in the third. Nothing after that. Deducted from the proceeds. It covers what we have paid out and not yet recovered — acquisition, storage, insurance, commission and our margin on the original sale — and it falls each year as that shortfall closes. It is not a fee for leaving.
Fees on a sale: 10% of the profit where the cask is sold on to another owner or a third party. Nothing is charged if you sell it back to us. Third-party costs of sale — commission, regauge, transport, warehouse transfers — come out of the proceeds too. Ask us and we will confirm the full position in writing before you sell.
Selling your cask: We may buy it. We do not guarantee a price, a buyer or a timescale, and we do not publish an expected one.
Bottling your cask: Some owners have asked about bottling from their own casks. Tell us and we will set out what it involves and what it costs.

Email admin@highlandcaskgroup.com

Where the product goes

The bet is South East Asia

Our primary office is in Hong Kong and most of the team is in Asia. That is deliberate, not administrative.

Vietnam

The group has people on the ground in Ho Chi Minh City working on brand building and sell-in to the on-trade and retail. Spirits consumption there is growing faster than in the group's established markets.

Hong Kong

The group's primary office and the base for the parent company. Decisions on stock and on where bottled product goes are taken here.

Why it matters to the casks

A cask only becomes worth something when the spirit is bottled and sold. Holding stock makes sense because the group has a route to a growing market for the finished bottle.

Vietnam, 2024: Whisky market valued at US$358.8 million IMARC Group.
Vietnam, 2033: Forecast US$608.2 million IMARC Group. A compound annual growth rate of 4.8% across 2025–33.
The 26% figure: Growth of 26% to around 605,000 cases, worth US$440 million, by 2025 IWSR Drinks Market Analysis, reported by Global Drinks Intel in March 2023, from a base of US$304 million. It is growth across the period to 2025, not a rate per year, and the forecast horizon has now passed.

These are third-party estimates of the market for bottled spirit in Vietnam. They are not a forecast of what any cask is worth, and nothing here should be read as one. A cask does not track a consumer market.

The 26% is stated here the way its source states it. It is not an annual rate, and the page no longer describes it as one.

Company and compliance

Who you are dealing with

Company: Highland Cask Group Ltd Registered in England and Wales. Company number 13666515.
Owner: Highland Management Group Limited, Hong Kong Business Registration Number 76286577. All group assets, including the cask stock, are owned by this company.
Vietnam: Two companies in Ho Chi Minh City Công ty TNHH Highland Group — enterprise code 0319257200.
Công ty TNHH Highland Marketing Việt Nam — enterprise code 0318212052.
VAT and excise: VAT number GB408241618
Warehousing: All casks are held by third-party bonded warehousekeepers. We are not an excise warehousekeeper and do not hold that approval.
WOWGR: We held owner-of-goods registration GBOG408241600. WOWGR is the Warehousekeepers and Owners of Warehoused Goods Regulations 1999. It set out who could hold duty-suspended spirit in an excise warehouse. On 3 March 2025 HMRC removed the registration requirement for owners of goods and for duty representatives; only warehousekeepers register now. We have not replaced our registration because there is nothing to replace it with. The approval that matters today sits with the warehousekeepers holding our casks, and they carry it.