What is Bottled in Bond?
What is Bottled in Bond?
Bottled in Bond or BiB was introduced to protect the public from inferior and sometimes harmful liquor.
Drafted in 1897 the first available bottle was produced in 1901, having been aged for four years, the Bottled-In-Bond Act was the first consumer protection act in US history. It gave assurances about the quality and origin of the spirit contained in the bottle. The Act required that any spirit labeled as “Bottled-in-Bond”:
- Identify the distiller
- Be the product of one distiller
- Come from one distillery
- The grain mush be the product of one distillation season - from January to December of the same year
- Aged in a federally-bonded warehouse under federal governmental supervision
- Aged for a minimum of four years
- Have no additives
- Bottled at exactly 100 proof
- Sealed with an engraved strip stamp
The regulation was adapted in the 1980’s and now BiB labeled products are no longer required to carry a tax stamp with the season, the year made and bottled.