Scotch whisky vocabulary dictionary

As the name suggests, the focus of the Malt Madness website is firmly on malts.
Malt whisky in general and single malt whisky in particular - I'll explain later why.
Although vatted malts can lack the personality of a single malt, some of them offer
excellent value for money. You can find great vatted malts for less than 20 Euro's!
So if you're mainly interested in finding a good drinking whisky that won't give you
a hangover, quit reading this guide and surf to the Deviant Drams section instead.
There you will find an overview of all the whiskies I have sampled that are NOT;
 
A) Scotch (i.e. no Irish whiskey, Japanese whisky, Bourbon or Rye whiskey), and/or
B) single (i.e. no blends & vatted malts where different whiskies are mixed), and/or
C) malt (i.e. not made from other grains than 100% malted barley.
 
Are you still with me so far?  Good, because this is where it all gets a little confusing...

My personal favorite type of whisky is MALT WHISKY, produced from 100% malted barley
(fermented with yeast) and distilled batch by batch in massive, traditional copper 'pot stills'.
No other grain products or fermentable material is permitted in the production of this whisky.
Within the 'malt whisky' category there are two sub-types; SINGLE MALT WHISKY (which
is the product from one single distillery, not blended with whisky from any other distillery)
and VATTED MALT WHISKY (different malt whiskies from more than one distillery, which
have been blended together to produce a consistent product that still has a personality).
 
The (originally) six so-called 'Classic Malts' from industry giant Diageo (Dalwhinnie, Oban,
Lagavulin, Cragganmore, Talisker & Glenkinchie) are examples of single malt 'brands'.
Well known vatted malts are 'Sheep Dip', 'Blairmhor' and 'Johnnie Walker Green Label'.

The less said about GRAIN WHISKY the better, if you ask me. It's made from a mash of
cereal grains (usually barley, wheat and maize). Both malted barley (barley which has
started to germinate before it was dried to stop the germination) and unmalted barley
(unsprouted barley which remains dormant) are used in the production of grain whisky.
Grain whisky is distilled in a continuous 'industrial' process, using so-called ' Coffey Stills'.
The black label of the (very young) 'Blackbarrel' grain whisky identifies it as a single grain.
Unless casked and aged properly, the end result often resembles the revolting Dutch drink
Jenever (gin). That being said, I've sampled a few old grain whiskies that were simply amazing.

A SINGLE CASK SINGLE MALT (a.k.a. a 'single-single') is as exclusive as it gets.
It's the same as a normal single malt whisky, but all bottles are taken from one single cask of whisky.
When you realize that a bourbon barrel usually equalizes about 300 bottles of whisky (sherry casks are larger), the drinking of a single-single malt like the Balvenie 15yo Single Barrel is quite a special experience. However, it can be risky business as well.  Only plain water is added before it is bottled, and in the case of so-called 'cask strength' bottlings not even that. There are bottlings with an ABV (alcohol percentage) of well over 60% available! However, I couldn't really recommend those to any beginner - it would be better to start at 40% or 43%.
But don't worry, there are plenty of single malts that I can recommend - and I will in chapter 9.
But first there is a lot more 'single malt theory' I'd like to share with you...

The character of a single malt is shaped (to some extent) by its environment, but I'll go deeper
into the importance of geography in the next chapter. Most single malt whiskies are distilled and
matured in Scotland, but I've enjoyed some very decent single malts from countries like Ireland,
Japan, Germany and South-Africa as well. Those are still exceptions, though. You may find a few
'deviant' bottles at your local spirit monger but many thousands of different single malt Scotch
whiskies are currently available in liquor-stores all over the world. There are about two dozen
major 'brands' like Glenfiddich and Balvenie - malts like Ardmore or Banff are more obscure.

Contrary to popular belief, the native inhabitants of Scotland don't speak Scotch.
Their language is called GAELIC and some single malts have names that seem unpronounceable.
The list of the major tongue-breakers below may prevent possible humiliation at the counter of your local whisky bar.
But hey, let's not forget that these pages are just a 'Beginner's Guide' to SMSW. Maybe we shouldn't worry too much
about how to order a single malt with style and sophistication, and focus on selecting the proper whisky first, eh?

So - I bet you feel a lot smarter already... 
And that's just at the end of chapter 2 of the Beginner's Guide!
Just imagine how smart you'll feel at the end of the last chapter of the guide.
So, hesitate not a single second longer than you absolutely have to and... click on!

There used to be three different 'main categories' of whisky - malt whisky, grain whisky and blends.
As if things weren't difficult enough for the novices in maltland, the SWA (Scotch Whisky Association)
introduced a whole new set of definitions in 2005. In their infinite wisdom the SWA decided to improve
the lives of whisky lovers all over the world by 'simplifying' things.

By far the most bottles of whisky that go over the counter at your local liquorist
are BLENDED WHISKY - a 'blend' of roughly 2/3 (and often more) grain whiskies
combined with about 1/3 malt whiskies from several different distilleries to form
a drink that applies to the tastes (and wallets) of as many people as possible.
The massive success of blends has proven that this approach worked great...

Now it's time to establish what all those fancy words in the whisky world mean.
First of all: There are three different categories of Scotch whisky; malt whisky,
grain whisky and blended whisky. One of the characteristics that all three share
is the fact that they have to be matured for at least three years; a minimum set
by British law. I'll go into blended and grain whisky before I'll deal with the malts.

Does this make things easier? Hardly... Now 'blended' could mean malt, grain or blend...
The text PURE MALT on a bottle of whisky means about as much as the text 'especially selected' or
'checked and approved' - remarkably little indeed. All Scotch malt whiskies (whether they are single
or vatted) are pure malt whiskies, produced exclusively from malted barley using copper pot stills.
If a bottle contains any kind of grain whisky whatsoever, it is a blended whisky by definition.
When it says 'pure' instead of 'single' on the label these days, it's most likely a vatted malt.

Finally, a few words about AGE STATEMENTS. Many independent bottlings (IB's, see chapter 6 for
more information) specify an age statement in years, a year of distillation and a year of bottling.
Sometimes details like cask number and wood type are provided as well - or even specific dates.
For example: Ardbeg 17yo 1974/1992 (43%, Signatory Vintage Special Old Selection, Cask #2026).
Most of the official bottlings (OB's) only provide an age statement, like the Ardbeg 17yo (40%, OB).
These official bottlings are not 'single cask' bottlings, but 'vattings' from many different casks of the
same malt. In these cases the age statement indicates the age of the youngest whisky in the vatting.
So, an age statement on the label of an OB gives you the MINIMUM age of the malt inside the bottle.
Theoretically, casks that are much older could end up in the bottle.

There's even a apocryphal story about the
Springbank distillery that used one or more
casks of very old (and dark) whisky to add
colour to a much younger vatting that had
turned out lighter than the previous batch.
 
It could be true, I guess - but knowing the
thrifty nature of some of the present staff
and management at Springbank I have to
admit that the charming little story almost
sounds just a tad too good to be true.
But then again I'm a hopeless cynic...

Most 'official' single malt bottlings are VATTINGS (= blends) of different casks / barrels.
Vatting or blending various casks of whisky from the distillery together gives the master blender some control over the final product. From a portfolio of thousands of casks, the blender selects those (usually a few dozen casks, but sometimes hundreds) that have the desired character. The quality of individual casks can vary considerably from cask to cask. So, unless other people have made recommendations about a specific single cask bottling you'll have no guarantee that that particular whisky will have the 'distillery profile' you expect.
But that's part of the fun of sampling single cask bottlings - usually bottled by independent bottlers...

Even if you've never tried them, you've surely heard of some of the major international brands like Johnnie Walker.
A handful of other examples are Bell's, Famous Grouse, Ballantine's, Cutty Sark, J&B, Chivas Regal, Teacher's, VAT 69,
Dimple, Grant's, Dewar's, Lochranza, William Lawson, House of Lords, Old Smuggler, Ye Monks, Te Bheag & Poit Dhub.

One of my personal favorites was a Garnheath 1969 bottled for Olivier Humbrecht's father,
as well as a few bottles from Invergordon in their thirties that were bottled by independent
bottler Duncan Taylor. It seems that all a grain whisky needs is time & the love of a good cask...
Because the difference between the grain whiskies from different distilleries is relatively small (compared
to the differences between different single malt whiskies at least), it never attracted the large 'cult' following
that single malts did. What's more, there are just a dozen different grain distilleries versus almost a hundred
malt whisky distilleries. The convenient story about Scotland's 'terroirs' (see the next chapter on geography)
just doesn't really fit a type of whisky that has an even harder time being unique than blended whiskies.

So, those were two main categories of Scotch whisky (blended whisky & grain whisky) - how about that third 'malt whisky' category?

The amazing complexity and variation that can be found in single malts is caused by the
large number of variables that play a role in the production and maturation of the whisky.
Apart from the role of 'geography' or 'terroir' (investigated in the next chapter) some other
significant variables are the quality of barley sourced, the shape and utilisation of the stills
and the quality of casks used for aging. Yes, the shape of a still plays a very important role
(as does the type and size of cask), but I'll go deeper into these aspects in later chapters.
In fact, I think I've gotten a little side-tracked... The topic at hand was whisky vocabulary.
Knowing what the phrases and abbreviations in the 'Scotch Slang' column mean will come
in handy when you venture deeper into the world of single malts. So, learn them by heart...

- Single malt whisky = a malted barley whisky from one distillery.
- Single grain whisky = a grain whisky from one distillery (not necessarily from a single type of grain).
- Blended malt whisky = a malt whisky created by mixing single malt whiskies from several distilleries.
- Blended grain whisky = a whisky created by mixing grain whiskies from more than one distillery.
- Blended Scotch whisky = a mixture of malt and grain whiskies, usually from multiple distilleries.

According Wikipedia there now are two major categories,
single and blended whisky. The word 'Single' means that
100% of the product is from one single distillery, while the
word 'Blended' means that the end product is composed of
whiskies from two or more different whisky distilleries.
 
Well, so far that makes sense - but they needed a further
subdivision, and that's where matters get a little trickier.
Once again I checked Wikipedia for the details and found;

Blending was introduced in the 19th century because
many of the whiskies distilled in those days had just
a tad too much 'character' for the average Victorian
whisky drinker. There may be as much as 50 or more
different single malt and grain whiskies in a blend.
This allows the so-called master blender to compose
a fairly consistent product that's not likely to offend
many people. (Well, not too many of them anyway.)
Furthermore, the production of grain whisky is much
easier and cheaper than distilliation of malt whisky.

Scotch malt whisky guide

Scotch whisky information