Daily Casefile · Verdict
Water in the Worm
≈ 4 min
Copperhead Glen's owners discovered last Friday that Cask 14-G, a 12-year single malt reserved for a premium release, filled bottles at only 43% ABV instead of the certified 58%. Lab analysis confirmed the cask had been topped up with water sometime during the previous fortnight. Fergus Malt, the head stillman, is the only staff member with an unsupervised key to the barrel warehouse and the bottling line. He insists the low reading is a calibration error on the refractometer and denies any tampering. The question before you is whether Fergus Malt deliberately diluted Cask 14-G.
Subject
Fergus Malt, head stillman at Copperhead Glen Distillery
Charged with Diluting a premium batch — deliberately adding water to Cask 14-G, a 12-year single malt, reducing its bottling strength from the certified 58% ABV to 43% ABV and pocketing the difference in recovered spirit
The scene
Copperhead Glen Craft Distillery, a small-batch whisky producer in rural Perthshire, Scotland, present day — a stone stillhouse, a barrel warehouse, and a tasting room overlooking a peat bog
The witnesses
- Orla Finch — Distillery owner and master blender
- Callum Brae — Copperhead Glen delivery driver and general assistant
- Heather Strome — Scottish Whisky Association compliance inspector
- Fergus Malt — Head stillman (defendant)
Play today’s Verdict.
This case first aired on July 22, 2026. A fresh verdict runs every morning — same rules, five minutes, one solution.