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I don’t understand the infatuation with single malts. The distiller has a lot more control when making a blend and assuming equal skill and care can make a bett

I don’t understand the infatuation with single malts. The distiller has a lot more control when making a blend and assuming equal skill and care can make a better product

FridayoLeary 5y ago
I'm also not sure why almost every whisky out there seems to be watered down to 40%.
- bboreham 5y ago
  Bound to be for tax reasons. However, if you haven’t read this story it’s quite interesting. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2144353-why-adding-a-drop-of-water-can-make-whisky-taste-even-better/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2144353-why-adding-a-dr...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  Doesn't it get pretty hard to actually drink it above 40%?
  - te_chris 5y ago
    Not at all. Acquired taste perhaps, but high-strength, well-made spirits can be wonderful. Need to treat them with respect though, as the downsides are obvious. Loads of the over-proof whiskys and rums are glorious.
  - smcl 5y ago
    The strongest you'll likely see is 60% (I have a Glenfarclas 105 at that ABV) but you are right it gets a little challenging at a higher ABV. However between 43-46% is a little richer in flavour without being too nippy even for beginners.
  - FridayoLeary 5y ago
    depends on the whisky. I understand some do well being diluted and others are fine at cask strength.
- dageshi 5y ago
  40% is the legal minimum to call it Whiskey in the UK. It's watered down to increase profit.
OJFord 5y ago
I think in general (i.e. not just w.r.t. whisky) it comes from the constituents being non-vintage, since not many vintage crops declared a {relevant mark for 'good year'} wind up blended, and then since correlation of course equals, er, backwards causation, we end up with this 'all blends are worse than any single X'. Which of course isn't true.
te_chris 5y ago
Urban legend I've heard is it was a marketing ploy dreamed up by the Guinness company to charge Americans more. Seems to have worked.
twic 5y ago
Not quite: "blended whisky" is a blend of malt and grain whisky. Grain whisky has very little flavour. Hence, blended whiskies invariably have less flavour than single malts. There is also "blended malt whisky", which is made entirely of malt whisky, but from more than one distillery. As you say, that can be very good, but for whatever reason it isn't a huge category. I think it's growing, though - Monkey Shoulder is a fairly new blended malt that has become a de facto standard workhorse Scotch in cocktail bars, and Compass Box has been grinding out good blended malts for years. Bear in mind that there is enormous variation between individual casks even at a single distillery. The blender at a distillery has an adequately broad palette to work with, even within the constraints of making single malt. Indeed, it is often the case that a blender will decide that some particular cask in their stock is too far outside the parameters of their house style to use at all. These casks go to independent bottlers, who put their own name on it, and try to find some niche to market it to.
- dogma1138 5y ago
  That really depends on the country/regulation, Irish blended whiskey is indeed a blend of Grain and Malt whiskey, Scottish blended is a mix of single malts and is usually labeled as blended malt whiskey instead of just blended. But indeed people tend to classify blended whiskeys as inferior for some reason they aren’t, especially in tightly regulated countries or from good distilleries. Blended whiskeys allow for a much wider flavor spectrum and most importantly consistency which you can’t get from single malt/single cask whiskeys as each batch and even cask will have quite a bit of variance. Once you get to the few £1000 per bottle often from brands you never heard off including a lot of private clubs, the whiskeys are nearly always blended and they basically are blends of some of the most rare and sought off single malts.
  - smcl 5y ago
    Just to add a bit more regarding what we call Scotch, since there's a bit of confusion here. We have a few terms which are quite strictly legally protected: Single malt = a single distillery blending various barrels of malt whisky they produced themselves Single grain = a single distillery blending various barrels of grain whisky they produced themselves Blended malt = a whisky produced from barrels of malt whisky from various distilleries Blended grain = a whisky produced from barrels of grain whisky from various distilleries ... I don't think I have ever seen this :) Blended scotch = a whisky produced from barrels of grain or malt whisky from various distilleries If you were to randomly choose a cheaper whisky it'll likely be a blended scotch, if you were to randomly choose a more expensive whisky it'll likely be a single malt. There are exceptions of course - there are cheap(er) single malts and there are pricier blends - and "blended" does not necessarily imply bad whisky (nor does the presence of grain whisky necessarily imply bad!). And indeed there are pricey single grains (Arbikie in Arbroath were doing a Rye whisky for a few hundred pounds a bottle). The only way to know anything for sure is to sample for yourself, which is a delicious and fun thing to do :D Edit: oh and "grain" refers to a bunch of things that aren't barley - it could be corn, millet, wheat, rye, rice or other things.
scarytom 5y ago
A single malt is not made from a single cask, and each cask behaves slightly differently. The distiller therefore has a lot to work with, and will very carefully blend multiple casks to create the desired single malt product before bottling.

I don’t understand the infatuation with single malts. The distiller has a lot more control when making a blend and assuming equal skill and care can make a better product

FridayoLeary 5y ago

I'm also not sure why almost every whisky out there seems to be watered down to 40%.

bboreham 5y ago
Bound to be for tax reasons. However, if you haven’t read this story it’s quite interesting. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2144353-why-adding-a-drop-of-water-can-make-whisky-taste-even-better/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2144353-why-adding-a-dr...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
chrisseaton 5y ago
Doesn't it get pretty hard to actually drink it above 40%?
- te_chris 5y ago
  Not at all. Acquired taste perhaps, but high-strength, well-made spirits can be wonderful. Need to treat them with respect though, as the downsides are obvious. Loads of the over-proof whiskys and rums are glorious.
- smcl 5y ago
  The strongest you'll likely see is 60% (I have a Glenfarclas 105 at that ABV) but you are right it gets a little challenging at a higher ABV. However between 43-46% is a little richer in flavour without being too nippy even for beginners.
- FridayoLeary 5y ago
  depends on the whisky. I understand some do well being diluted and others are fine at cask strength.
dageshi 5y ago
40% is the legal minimum to call it Whiskey in the UK. It's watered down to increase profit.

OJFord 5y ago

I think in general (i.e. not just w.r.t. whisky) it comes from the constituents being non-vintage, since not many vintage crops declared a {relevant mark for 'good year'} wind up blended, and then since correlation of course equals, er, backwards causation, we end up with this 'all blends are worse than any single X'. Which of course isn't true.

te_chris 5y ago

Urban legend I've heard is it was a marketing ploy dreamed up by the Guinness company to charge Americans more. Seems to have worked.

twic 5y ago

Not quite: "blended whisky" is a blend of malt and grain whisky. Grain whisky has very little flavour. Hence, blended whiskies invariably have less flavour than single malts. There is also "blended malt whisky", which is made entirely of malt whisky, but from more than one distillery. As you say, that can be very good, but for whatever reason it isn't a huge category. I think it's growing, though - Monkey Shoulder is a fairly new blended malt that has become a de facto standard workhorse Scotch in cocktail bars, and Compass Box has been grinding out good blended malts for years. Bear in mind that there is enormous variation between individual casks even at a single distillery. The blender at a distillery has an adequately broad palette to work with, even within the constraints of making single malt. Indeed, it is often the case that a blender will decide that some particular cask in their stock is too far outside the parameters of their house style to use at all. These casks go to independent bottlers, who put their own name on it, and try to find some niche to market it to.

dogma1138 5y ago
That really depends on the country/regulation, Irish blended whiskey is indeed a blend of Grain and Malt whiskey, Scottish blended is a mix of single malts and is usually labeled as blended malt whiskey instead of just blended. But indeed people tend to classify blended whiskeys as inferior for some reason they aren’t, especially in tightly regulated countries or from good distilleries. Blended whiskeys allow for a much wider flavor spectrum and most importantly consistency which you can’t get from single malt/single cask whiskeys as each batch and even cask will have quite a bit of variance. Once you get to the few £1000 per bottle often from brands you never heard off including a lot of private clubs, the whiskeys are nearly always blended and they basically are blends of some of the most rare and sought off single malts.
- smcl 5y ago
  Just to add a bit more regarding what we call Scotch, since there's a bit of confusion here. We have a few terms which are quite strictly legally protected: Single malt = a single distillery blending various barrels of malt whisky they produced themselves Single grain = a single distillery blending various barrels of grain whisky they produced themselves Blended malt = a whisky produced from barrels of malt whisky from various distilleries Blended grain = a whisky produced from barrels of grain whisky from various distilleries ... I don't think I have ever seen this :) Blended scotch = a whisky produced from barrels of grain or malt whisky from various distilleries If you were to randomly choose a cheaper whisky it'll likely be a blended scotch, if you were to randomly choose a more expensive whisky it'll likely be a single malt. There are exceptions of course - there are cheap(er) single malts and there are pricier blends - and "blended" does not necessarily imply bad whisky (nor does the presence of grain whisky necessarily imply bad!). And indeed there are pricey single grains (Arbikie in Arbroath were doing a Rye whisky for a few hundred pounds a bottle). The only way to know anything for sure is to sample for yourself, which is a delicious and fun thing to do :D Edit: oh and "grain" refers to a bunch of things that aren't barley - it could be corn, millet, wheat, rye, rice or other things.

scarytom 5y ago

A single malt is not made from a single cask, and each cask behaves slightly differently. The distiller therefore has a lot to work with, and will very carefully blend multiple casks to create the desired single malt product before bottling.