Whisky Guild - single malt scotch whisky new york new jersy

Learn about whisky

View our in depth Distillery Section

Famous Blends
· Ballantines · Black Bottle · Bell's · Catto's · Cutty Sark · Famous Grouse · Green Plaid · Hankey-Bannister	· Johnnie Walker · J & B Rare · Macarthurs · Pinwinnie · Teacher's · Whyte & Mackay · Isle of Skye

Blending Whisky

For as long as they have existed in Scotland, whisky was sold by taverns and hotels, wine and spirits merchants, grocers and provision merchants.The whiskies were sold under the merchants' or invented names, not branded by the distiller, although by the early 19th century Glenlivet had made such a reputation for itself that a huge number of malts - many of them remote from Glenlivet itself were using the name.

It is safe to suppose that some of these merchants mixed their whiskies - even diluted and adulterated them. Until legislation permitted weaker washes and smaller stills, illicit malt whisky was much superior to the legal variety; as we have seen, in the Lowlands pot-still grain distilleries were common.Young whiskies were mixed with old; grain with malt - all in the interests of profit.

This early 'blending' was a crude affair.There was little quality control, and little concern for consistent, repeatable, products.

The whisky blenders task is to combine a number of malt and grain whiskies in such a way that the resulting drink is more than the sum of its parts.

Its parts are many. The Master Blender selects from between fifteen and fifty different malt whiskies and three or four grain whiskies.

Each is at a different age (by law, they must be at least three years old; some may be twenty-five in even a standard blend), and is chosen from an individual cask

The Formulae for Blends
The formulae for some blends are a hundred years old, but they are not sacrosanct. Distilleries close and their product is no longer available. Sometimes they choose to withdraw from the blending market and bottle their output as a single (Glenmorangie did this in the early 1980s). From time to time whisky companies alter the composition to suit changing taste. This was recently done, very successfully, by Bell's (a bold step for the U.K. market leader) and the new 8 Years Old is richer and smoother than the previous blend.

The Whisky Boom
The Spirit Act of 1860 made it possible to produce large volumes of blended whisky, and many spirits merchants and grocers began to specialise in producing blends with a very broad appeal. Drinks which had a lighter character than malt whisky, but were more substantial than grain whisky.

The economic advantages of creating a flavoursome drink out of grain whisky were not missed by the many wine & spirits merchants who took up blending, and since they were now able to achieve greater consistency of flavour, it also became possible - and desirable - to brand their creations and promote them.

Victorian Era
The Victorian era produced many remarkable people, not least in the whisky industry. Between the late 1870s and the turn of the century a handful of astonishingly able and vigorous Scots promoted their new blended whiskies, first in London and then around the world. Many of them became immensely wealthy as a result, and several were elevated to the peerage - James Buchanan (The Buchanan Blend and Black & White) became Lord Woolavington; Tommy Dewar (Dewar's White Label) was made Baron Dewar of Homestall and his brother John, Lord Forteviot; Peter Mackie (of White Horse) was made a baronet and Alexander Walker (Johnnie Walker) was knighted.

They were assisted by a number of factors. First was the appeal of the product. Second, the growing fashion for things Scottish, led by Queen Vicloria herself. Third, the by now well established rail and sea routes, which made transportation far easier than previously. Fourth, by the existence of the British Empire, the biggest free market in the world.

The Vastetrix bug
Fifth, and most significantly was a bug, Vastetrix, which devastated the vineyards of France between the mid- 1860s and the late 1880s. The significance of the latter was immense. During the 1880s the vineyards of Grande Champagne were ruined and the production of Cognac virtually ceased. Brandy became almost unavailable. And brandy (with soda) was the drink of the English middle classes. Blended whisky (and soda) was there to replace it.

Old Vatted Glenlivet
The first commercial blend - in the sense that it was offered for sale to a wider market, and thus had to be consistent - was made by Andrew Usher in 1853. Usher was the Edinburgh agent for Glenlivet, and he named his creation Old Vatted Glenlivet. By 1860 it was being advertised in London, and in 1864 he was selling it overseas, especially in India.

Others followed, spurred on by the fact that increases in tax (in 1853 and 1855) caused a slackening of demand for whisky in England, and also because there was such an over-production of grain whisky in the Lowlands that the six largest distillers agreed to divide their market to avoid a price war (1857). But these early blends were invariably relabelled for the retailer Mighty encouragement to producing large volumes of blend came with Gladstone's Spirit Act of 1860, which allowed blending in bonded warehouses before duty had to be paid.