BLENDED SCOTCH WHISKY
Blended Scotch owes its existence to predecessors: malt whisky and grain whisky came together in the mid-19th century. Its distinctive mellow character is achieved by balancing the richer flavours of malt with the lighter, more fragrant character of grain whisky.
Blended Scotch soon became the most popular whisky choice, while malt and grain whisky were relegated to being components of a blend.
The earliest blended Scotch whisky were produced by wine and spirit merchants and by grocers such as James Chivas, Alexander Walker and James Ballantine.
The production of the blended Scotch whisky requires significant skill and large experience, because combining whiskies with varying characteristics sees some flavours promoted and intensifies, other diminished and other banished.
Maintaining the flavour of a specific blend is not simply a case of ordering in the usual whiskies. In fact, the master blender chooses casks containing whisky that will produce the required outcome when blended.
In addition, recipes of blended Scotch comprehend various proportions of malt and grain whiskies, incorporating different fills. Actually, a recipe may include around 20 component whiskies. But a recipe of his blended Scotch whisky type is not the number of proportions of malts to grains, but is the ratio and the interaction between the flavours of the component whiskies that leads to the result. This explains why any changes to the proportions of a recipe, although minor, can result in a very different blended Scotch whisky.
Source: The Whisky Dictionary: an A-Z of Whisky, from history & heritage to-distilling & drinking
