More Than a Number: Selecting the Right Bottle Proof for Your Spirit

It’s such a seemingly insignificant thing—a few digits adorning the bottle label, often placed in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it location. Yet your choice of alcohol concentration in the bottle is one of the most important considerations when finalizing your products.

You could spend months—years, in many cases—agonizing over every aspect of your spirit’s production process, aiming to concoct a liquid ambrosia for which the gods themselves would cede their very immortality … only to ruin the whole affair with a poorly chosen bottle proof.

So, let’s wade into the tangled currents of choosing a bottle strength—because it’s a more complicated decision than you might expect.