When single-malts were a novel idea

[Troglodyte]

I drink blended Scotch every day, and save my $$$ for the good stuff - Lagavulin being my favorite. Ardbeg has some good ones too. Cragganmore is my favorite for smoothness - and for freinds that dont enjoy the smoke.

i find it interesting that blending seems to just be a thing with Scotch. I think nearly all bourbon is bottled and sold by the original distiller.

Blending is not just for Scotch.

Rum producers have always done it, with only scant clues to what has been blended - the label might say something like 'A skillful blend of the finest Caribbean rums...' so we can make of that what we will!

Brandy and wines get the same treatment.

It was not really until the 1970s that whisky distillers thought single-malts worth marketing in their own right, as blends could be produced consistently well, and the blends of the past were good (really good in some cases) and at least the equal of what you might call entry-level malts of today.

It is now more than 40 years since I inherited my grandfather's stash of pre-war whisky - all blends, of course - that I drank my way through rather too quickly. What I remember of them justifies blending, that the few bottles of White Horse and Black & White (remember them?) were delightfully smokey and peaty, and like a somewhat mild Islay malt, or maybe Talisker.

As a test and comparison, I bought the then current versions of those two, and drank them alongside the old ones, and the difference was astonishing.

I have no objection to blends at all, and will regularly add a drop or two of a particular malt, which can transform the blend amazingly. Part of the problem with blends these days is that they are automatically mixed with stuff like Coke, and drunk ice-cold, so the blenders now cater for that.

If you ever get the chance, check out George Saintsbury's Notes on a Cellar Book. Writing in 1923, what he says about malt whisky is interesting - a Scotch distiller confided in him, and advised the author to stay away from anything old. After about 15 years, the distiller said, the whisky 'gets slimy'. It requires blending.

Saintsbury writes how he keeps independant jars of Clyne Lish, Smith's Glenlivet, Glen Grant, Talisker, and one of the Islay malts of Lagavulin, Ardbeg or Caol Isla to make his own personal blends. He had been doing that for more than 45 years in 1923.

It seems astonishing to us now, that having obtained good supplies of those whiskies that he would then mix them up - but that's just what blenders like Buchanan, J&B, Berry, etc, have always done, and their customers have thanked them for it.

But I would love to taste that Saintsbury blend.