Single Barrel Whiskey Vs Blended

Frankly back in the 19thand early 20thcentury the single expressions of each distillery were pretty rough.

Single barrel whiskey vs blended.

A blended scotch whisky can make use of any whisky that fits these criteria as part of its components. There s a common misconception that because a certain whisky is labeled single malt it must be the product of just a single batch or barrel of whisky. In fact when the industry began to boom it was because it was blended it finally could be blended. But to label a bottle a single malt the liquid inside must have been distilled at one.

Single cask whiskey and single barrel whiskey are interchangeable terms to describe a whiskey that has been bottled after aging in a single barrel rather than being blended from multiple batches. Therefore that single malt you are sipping on has most likely been blended with different batches from the distillery. This is usually unmixed with whiskies coming from other sources. Yet what you are buying is almost always a blend of several different whiskey types.

Formally however a blended whisky is a product that contains a mix of barrel aged malt and grain whiskies. Single barrel whiskey or single cask whiskey is a premium class of whiskey in which each bottle comes from an individual aging barrel instead of coming from blending together the contents of various barrels to provide uniformity of color and taste even whiskeys that are not blends may be combined from more than one batch or even from differing years to achieve consistency. What is vatting versus blending whiskey companies try very hard to hide the fact that vatting is just a fancier way of saying blending. Blended whiskies which are estimated to make up 90 of all scotch whisky sales worldwide are blends of single malt whisky and so called grain whiskies.

Now a scottish single malt is defined as a whisky only made from malted barley prepared in the traditional way from the same distillery. Blended grain scotch whisky this is a. Back to the topic at hand so if that is what constitutes a single malt what on earth is a blended whisky then. He explains why he made that decision and what impact it has on the flavor.

Let s start by taking a look at the history of scotch whisky. Since the aroma flavor color and other defining characteristics vary from oak barrel to oak barrel each oak barrel released is a new or unique product. Whiskey producers often blend many batches of grain and malt whiskeys to produce a particular desired flavor. That malted barley form of whiskey aged for years in an oak barrel produces that classic scottish single malt scotch.

It s not single whisky from a single barrel as many of us like to think. Single malt vs blended whiskies. For years scotch whisky was blended whisky.