Use Rothbaum, displayed pp. 85–86 / complete PDF sheets 196–199, and Mitenbuler, pp. 110–115. Consult the 1897 statute for extended legal quotation.
The 1897 Bottled-in-Bond regime tied a recognizable whiskey designation to production by one distillery in one season, required aging in federally supervised storage, and specified 100-proof bottling.
Verified against multiple complete-source Excerpts with recoverable locators and Ready Citations; wording is historical and does not substitute for current-law guidance.
The regime was a certification and custody system, not a complete guarantee of quality or authenticity. Current bottled-in-bond requirements require current-law verification.
Independent source passages converge on one distillery, one season, aging, bottling proof, and federal custody as the historical trust mechanism.
Created to close a verified chronology gap between rectifier competition and early-twentieth-century labeling rules. Used in the published history page “Defining Whiskey” on 2026-09-02, with the certification-not-quality guardrail retained.
Claim
The 1897 Bottled-in-Bond regime joined whiskey production standards to federally supervised custody.
Evidence judgment
Two verified complete-source passages independently connect the designation to one distillery, one production season, aging, 100-proof bottling, and federal supervision.
Boundary
This is a historical trust and certification mechanism, not a claim that every bottled-in-bond whiskey was superior or that the historical description alone states current law.
Drafting guardrail
Use the 1897 statute for extended legal quotation and recheck current regulations before describing present requirements.
Readiness decision
Ready for Drafting with Strong evidence and High confidence.
Reigler 2020 — bounded source audit
Reigler PDF278 does not independently establish the1897 statute and contains a problematic proof formulation. Do not use it to replace the controlling historical sources or establish current law. The historical claim's existing confidence is not independently reassessed by reading this guide.
Existing claim status and other-source evidence retained.