ABOUT US
WE SET UP CHEAPER BY THE DRAM FOR WHISKY LOVERS, CONNOISSEURS AND NEWCOMERS ALIKE TO EXPLORE AND DISCOVER DRAMS OF WHISKY THAT WOULD OTHERWISE BE INACCESSIBLE TO THE AVERAGE WHISKY DRINKER.
We remember when Macallan Private Eye was released for £36 and when Black Bowmore was released for £80. This was a time when ‘flipping’ a bottle was unheard of and access to quality malt whisky was available to everyone.
The trend for collecting and investing in whisky as well as rising interest from overseas has caused the price of whisky to climb sharply and means that the average whisky lover cannot afford to enjoy rare or premium malts as a casual drink. In turn, someone new to the world of whisky now finds themselves facing a hefty price tag to try these interesting malts.
Cheaper By The Dram was started by Mark Littler in order to bring whisky back to the drinker, two bottles at a time. We love whisky and we wanted to share that whisky with as many people as possible, hence Cheaper By The Dram was born.
We have sourced the finest rare and collectable whiskies from the world’s best distilleries to bring you Cheaper By The Dram. By splitting otherwise inaccessibly expensive bottles of whisky into drams, we share the cost of a bottle between our customers, allowing you to enjoy the very best whisky at an accessible price.
We believe that whisky is for drinking. That is why we have also launched our #SipDon’tFlip campaign to encourage people to drink whisky rather than simply flipping it, which in turn makes these bottle inaccesible to the average drinker.
All our bottles are marked ‘NOT FOR RESALE’. If we see one of our bottles on auction sites we intend to do our upmost to prevent those responsible from buying more drams from us.
Make sure you join us on social media and tag us as you enjoy your favourite dram.
WHO ARE CHEAPER BY THE DRAM?
Cheaper By The Dram was founded by Mark Littler. Mark has been in the whisky industry for years and when he’s wearing his other business hat he works for himself as an Antiques Consultant and Whisky Broker (at the imaginatively named Mark Littler Ltd.). Mark got into the whisky side of things having fallen in love with whisky while sharing a dram with his dad, but having spent years working with collectors he increasingly felt like whisky was drifting away from the drinkers.
Cheaper By The Dram is one man’s attempt to bring whisky back to its original audience: the drinker. It has been created by whisky drinkers, for whisky drinkers.
All the drams sold by Cheaper By The Dram have been bottled in Scotland at a fully licenced bottling facility. If you have any questions at all about any of our drams, or indeed anything about us, then please feel free to get in touch at: [email protected]
HOW IT WORKS
NO.01 – SELECTION
Each fortnight we choose a pair of interesting bottles of whisky. These are typically bottles which are great for drinking but are now out of the price range of many casual drinkers.
NO.02 – SEPARATION
We send the bottles to be separated into drams. Each bottle makes around 23 drams of whisky, which are individually packaged along with a short information card about that bottle.
NO.01 – SELECTION
Each fortnight we choose a pair of interesting bottles of whisky. These are typically bottles which are great for drinking but are now out of the price range of many casual drinkers.
NO.02 – SEPARATION
We send the bottles to be separated into drams. Each bottle makes around 23 drams of whisky, which are individually packaged along with a short information card about that bottle.
NO.03 – RELEASE
The drams from two bottles, each with a unique CBTD Ref are released for sale each fortnight. You can sign up to our mailing list to get access to the drams 24 hours before they’re released on general sale.
NO.04 – DELIVERED TO YOU
Choose and pay for your dram, then it is packed, checked and posted to you. Sign for your parcel enjoy your whisky. Peruse the info card and look forward to the next release.
NO.03 – RELEASE
The drams from two bottles, each with a unique CBTD Ref are released for sale each fortnight. You can sign up to our mailing list to get access to the drams 24 hours before they’re released on general sale.
NO.04 – DELIVERED TO YOU
Choose and pay for your dram, then it is packed, checked and posted to you. Sign for your parcel enjoy your whisky. Peruse the info card and look forward to the next release.
FAQs
We do not list the name of the distillery on the bottle because:
- The labels are too small to hold all the information about each bottle. Our labels meet the minimum requirements set by the Scotch Whisky Association the accompanying information card supplies the rest of the information.
- Most distillery names are trademarks and we are not into breaking the law.
Each of the bottles we use in a release is numbered with a specific CBTD Ref # that refers specifically to that individual bottle. The details of that CBTD Ref can be found on the information card received with each dram and on our online product page, which also links out to WhiskyBase.
Throughout our product development we worked closely with the Scotch Malt Whisky Association to ensure that we adhered to all their standards. The facility that bottles our drams is located in Scotland, is an HMRC bonded warehouse and is a fully accredited member of the spirits verification scheme. All the drams are bottled in a quality-controlled environment in an official bottling hall using specialised dram bottling machinery.
We have spent the last two years creating a product that you can open, sip and enjoy. If we see them on a whisky auction site next week we will be very sad. We will also do our upmost to ensure that person cannot buy another dram from us.
If you missed a dram that you really want to get your hands on please let us know; if we have enough interest we will look into getting another bottle. Get in touch by emailing [email protected].
