Royal Elizabeth Bond, the independent cask storage facility set to become one of Scotland’s largest, has announced that it will operate with complete transparency through the use of digital records.

The bond, based at the historic Royal Elizabeth Yard near the Forth Bridge in Dalmeny, has assigned every cask on site – held on behalf of distillers, brokers and private owners from across Scotland – a unique Digital Deed.

In an industry with centuries of documented history, Digital Deeds are an industry first, creating a digital identity for each cask. Accessed via a QR code, each Digital Deed records exactly what is in the cask, who owns it, where it is stored within the warehouse and every event in its history. The record remains with the cask throughout its lifetime and unlike paper documentation, cannot be lost or fraudulently duplicated.

Royal Elizabeth Bond, which secured HMRC Warehousekeeper approval in November 2025 and has planning consent for more than 800,000 square feet of new storage, taking its total capacity to around 1.1 million casks, chose to establish digital foundations before the first cask arrived on site by implementing the Proof 8 platform. The UK-based distillery and inventory management platform is rapidly being adopted by warehouses and distilleries as the industry seeks to embed greater traceability and transparency into operations and strengthen confidence in cask ownership.

Since opening, this digital-first approach has reduced the typical processing time for an intake of 100–150 casks from up to a full day to approximately 30 minutes. The system also eliminates the possibility of duplicate cask numbers, saving warehouse teams hours that would otherwise be spent manually identifying and resolving discrepancies. Time spent preparing and submitting financial reports to HMRC for WOWGR compliance has also been significantly reduced, with compliant monthly reporting taking no more than an hour. Proof 8 is recognised by HMRC.

Commenting on the announcement, Finlay Reid, Head of Operations at Royal Elizabeth Bond, said: “Because we were starting from scratch, we had a choice that many established operators don’t. We could either inherit the old way of doing things or build from a clean slate. Paper records and spreadsheets are prone to human error – data has to be re-entered, duplicate cask numbers can be created, and hours can be lost tracking down discrepancies.”

“One of the things cask owners care about most is knowing exactly where their cask is and having complete confidence in the records associated with it. The Digital Deed provides that reassurance. Owners can access details of their cask, its contents and all the key information attached to it at any time. With an asset as valuable as whisky, uncertainty and ambiguity are simply unacceptable. We wanted to adopt a better approach that would support us as we continue to grow.”

Stuart Maxwell, COO at Proof 8, added: “High-profile fraud cases have shown what can happen when the system relies solely on trust and outdated processes. A piece of paper can be duplicated; a Digital Deed cannot. Royal Elizabeth Bond has done what no operator at this scale has done before: it has eliminated paper records entirely and digitally recorded every cask from day one. That gives cask owners, distillers and HMRC something the industry has been missing – proof.”

The announcement comes at a pivotal moment for cask ownership. A BBC Scotland investigation into cask investment fraud found that victims had been sold casks that were overpriced, sold more than once or, in some cases, did not exist at all. Since reforms to the Warehousekeepers and Owners of Warehoused Goods Regulations (WOWGR) came into effect in March 2025, removing the requirement for cask owners to register with HMRC, the warehouse’s own records have become the primary safeguard protecting cask owners from uncertainty.