Single Malt vs Blended Whisky

For much of the modern era the categories of single malt and blended Scotch have been discussed as though in opposition. In truth the two traditions are deeply complementary, each having played an essential part in the story of the whisky industry.

A single malt is the product of one distillery, made entirely from malted barley in copper pot stills. A blended Scotch is composed of malt whiskies from several distilleries combined with grain whisky — a lighter spirit produced from other cereals, chiefly wheat or maize, and distilled in continuous column stills.

The blending tradition emerged in the middle years of the nineteenth century. The invention of the Coffey still in 1831 made grain whisky available in commercial quantities. In 1860 the Spirits Act allowed for the first time the blending of grain whisky and malt whisky under bond, and this legal change opened the way for the great commercial blends.

It was the blenders — not the malt distillers — who first carried Scotch whisky to the wider world.

The blenders of the late Victorian era — Andrew Usher in Edinburgh, John Dewar in Perth, James Buchanan in London — understood that a well-composed blend could achieve a consistency of character across time and place that a single malt could not readily match. It was the blends, not the single malts, that carried Scotch whisky into the wider world and made it the international drink it is today.

The single malt category as we now understand it is a comparatively recent phenomenon. Until the nineteen-sixties most single malts were made chiefly for use as component whiskies in blends, and were rarely bottled under their distillery's own name. The single malt renaissance of the nineteen-seventies and nineteen-eighties reversed this pattern, and today single malts are widely admired for the specificity and depth of their character.

A great blend is not a substitute for a great single malt; it is a different kind of achievement.

It would be a mistake, however, to regard the two categories as rivals. A great blend such as Johnnie Walker Blue Label or Chivas Brothers' 18 year old is as much a work of craft as a great single malt, and often draws on component whiskies of considerable age and provenance. The art of the blender lies in achieving a whole that is at once more consistent and more complex than any of its parts.

In the end the two traditions serve different purposes and satisfy different curiosities. The single malt invites a close attention to the character of one place; the blend rewards an admiration for the composition of many. The heritage of Scotch whisky is inseparable from both.