understanding terms and basics of provenance

Despite the cried of heresy - a good blend can taste great though it will be different than a single malt since several single malts will be used in a blend along with some non-malt whiskys.

Nope. It wouldn't fulfill the "single" of single malt.

I would pick up a book about Single Malt whiskys - Michael Jackson (not the singer) makes a book a lot of people swear by, but there are a lot of other good books. Poke around a bookstore for it - should be near the wine section.

Expressions are different bottlings from the same distillery. They can be of various ages, wood types, peating levels, etc. They can also be bottled by the distillery (OBs) or independent bottlers (IBs).

Both still and cask sizes vary GREATLY, certainly by a factor of 5!

Unlike American straight whiskey which uses various combinations of grains (corn, rye, wheat, and malted barley), single "malt" means only malted grain, and in Scotland this means only malted barley. Some distilleries do combine different types of malted barley, and different peating levels of malted barley though.

Your friend, John

An expression is a particular version of a whisky, one of the "types" available, from a given distillery. As an example, the Balvenie "Doublewood" is an expression of Balvenie. Other expressions of Balvenie would include the "Founders Reserve", and the "Portwood". These all have different age statements (the FR is a 10yo, the Doublewood is 12yo, the Portwood is a 21yo), but you could have different expressions which had the same age - say one aged in ex-bourbon casks and one aged in ex-sherry casks.

The Balvenies mentioned above are all OB's, which stands for "Official Bottling", or "Owner's Bottling" and sometimes it's said to mean "Original Bottling", though I think that's a bit misleading. The idea is that it was bottled by, or bottled for, the owners of the distillery. Another term for the same thing is "distillery bottling", but owners bottling is more accurate.

There are companies which don't own a distillery and simply purchase casks of whisky and bottle them. The owners of the distilleries don't have any control over these bottlings (and some owners don't like the fact that their whisky is bottled by someone else). These are called "Independent Bottlings", or IB's for short. If you found an independent bottling of Balvenie it would also be another "expression" of Balvenie.

I'll mostly leave it there, but there are a few complications: sometimes a distillery owner will contract with an independent bottler to bottle their whisky. Glenrothes is an example. So the Glenrothes bottled by Berry Brothers and Rudd is usuallly considered an Official Bottling even though they don't own the distillery. And recently some of the larger independent bottlers have a bought their own distillery.

That's one I don't know.

Again I don't know for certain, but I believe it's the other way around: one batch of distillation goes into many casks. Casks vary in size, and when a single cask is bottled (a "single-cask bottling") it may result in something between around 200 and 800 bottles depending on how big the cask is, how much whisky evaporated during aging, and how much water (if any) is added to lower the proof during the bottling.

No. Even when a distillery distills different types of whisky (such as Springbank which distills a more heavily peated variety called Longrow) they wouldn't be combined in a single cask.

No. The "single" in single malt means the product of only one distillery. The "malt" in single malt means it was distilled from only malted barley, and it's called a malt whisky.

If grains beside malted barley are used it's called a grain whisky.

If malt whiskies from several distilleries are combined it's called a vatted whisky, or a "pure malt" whisky (but that term has become controversial lately).

If malt whisky is combined with grain whisky it's called a blended whisky, or a "blend" for short.

And as always there are some exceptions and grey areas: the Irish make a type of whisky which uses only barley but some of it is unmalted. This is usually called "Pure Pot Still" whisky. This kind of whisky is not currently made in Scotland.

Also, Scottish single malts are distilled in copper pot stills in a very traditional manner, and Scottish grain whisky is distilled in column stills in a modern industrial process. But there have been instances of a whisky made only from malted barley but distilled in a column still, like a grain whisky. I'm not sure what that would be called, but the only bottling I know about like that called it a grain whisky, I think.

A lot of these terms are not defined by law; but by custom, industry practice, and the general requirements of truth-in- labelling. There is a trade organization called the Scotch Whisky Association that defines these terms for its members. Other producers generally abide by them as well.

Someone has already mentioned books like Michael Jackson's complete Guide to Single Malt Scotch. There's a lot available on the web as well. The site referenced in the thread about pronunciation has some good basic info on it. (It was one of the first Scotch websites). Also the Malt Maniacs site has some as well, I think. And there are plenty of others.

Hope this helps. May have been more than you wanted to know...

Bart

-snip-

Great stuff, just what I've been hoping for. Been trying to purchase the Michael Jackson book, but it's on back order most places.

This is an interesting and mostly civil forum, thanks

Am 09.02.2004 01:49 emaillierte :

For a start you can take a look at the older 3rd edition of his excellent Malt Whisky Companion:

GREAT! Didn't have an inkling that it was available online.

Thanks a lot.

learning more about single malt whisky everyday

Hey Chas! Where in Silicon Valley? I live in Fremont. Used to work for Intel in Santa Clara...

Joe