Living Souls is a notably recent arrival, founded in Glasgow in 2024, but it does not feel like a casual newcomer. The company was established by three industry veterans, Calum Leslie, Jamie Williamson and John Torrance, whose experience spans roles at Loch Lomond Group, Douglas Laing, Diageo and beyond. That background helps explain why the range arrived with an unusual degree of confidence: rather than easing into the market with one or two polite releases, Living Souls launched with a set of whiskies that already suggested a distinct point of view.

What makes that point of view interesting is that Living Souls does not seem especially interested in simply copying the standard independent bottler formula. There are single malts in the range, certainly, but the company has also shown an appetite for creative blending, small batch releases and whiskies with slightly unusual stories behind them. Early bottlings included a 15-year-old blended Scotch drawn from a developing solera system, alongside older blends and malts presented less as label exercises than as characterful, idiosyncratic bottlings. It gives the impression of a company more concerned with whether a whisky is interesting than whether it fits neatly into a familiar category.

There is, too, a modern sense of curation about Living Souls. The emphasis appears to be on flavour profile, individuality and release concept rather than sheer austerity, which sets it slightly apart from bottlers whose identity rests chiefly on single cask purity. That does not make it less serious, only differently focused. If many independent bottlers aim to present a cask exactly as found, Living Souls seems more interested in presenting whisky as a compelling finished idea, shaped by experience, selection and a certain willingness to be a little unconventional.