Single Malt Doesn't Mean Single Cask

Key facts

Single

one distillery

Malt

100% malted barley

Distillation

pot stills, in batches

Minimum maturation

3 years in oak, in Scotland

Minimum strength

40% ABV

Bottling

in Scotland since 23 Nov 2012

Single means one distillery, not one cask

The word single on the label says that every drop in the bottle was distilled at one distillery. It says nothing about how many casks went in.

Most single malts are a vatting of many casks from the same distillery. Each cask turns out slightly differently, and mixing them is how a distillery keeps its house style steady from one year to the next.

That mixing is fully within the rules as long as every cask comes from the same site. The person who does it is the blender, and their choices shape the final taste as much as the stills do.

One distillery can also release several versions, say one matured in ex-bourbon casks and one in ex-sherry casks. Both are still single malt, because both were distilled in the same place.

Malt means malted barley and nothing else

Malt means the only grain is barley that has been malted. No wheat, maize or rye is allowed.

Malting is steeping barley until it starts to sprout, then drying it. Sprouting grain makes the enzymes that turn its starch into sugar, which yeast can then ferment into alcohol.

The Scotch rules put it plainly: single malt is made from water and malted barley only. Whisky that uses other cereals as well is grain whisky, a separate category.

Distilled in pot stills

Single malt Scotch must be distilled in pot stills, one batch at a time, rather than in a continuous still.

A copper pot still is filled, run and emptied before the next charge goes in. Most Scottish malt is distilled twice. It is slower than a column still, but it carries more of the character of the barley and the fermentation into the spirit.

Grain whisky usually comes off a continuous column still, which gives a lighter, cleaner spirit. So the two styles already taste different before they ever reach a cask.

The shape of the pot still matters too. A tall neck sends more vapour back down to be distilled again and gives a lighter spirit; a short neck gives a heavier, oilier one.

Single cask, blended malt and blended: what separates them

Scotch law recognises five categories, defined by the raw material, the type of still and how many distilleries are involved.

Single cask is not a legal category. It is a label term for whisky bottled from one cask with no other cask mixed in, so the number of bottles is capped by the size of the cask and no two casks taste quite alike.

Blended malt used to be sold as vatted malt or pure malt. The 2009 rules made blended malt the required name, to stop it being confused with single malt.

Reading these terms on a label

Every Scotch label must carry one of the five category names, so you can tell at a glance how many distilleries are in the bottle and what it was made from.

• Single Malt Scotch Whisky: one distillery, malted barley, pot stills
• Blended Malt Scotch Whisky: malt only, from more than one distillery
• Blended Scotch Whisky: malt and grain together, which is most of the Scotch on the market
• Single Cask or a cask number: one cask, often with a bottle count
• An age such as 12 Years: the age of the youngest whisky in the bottle

Since 23 November 2012, single malt Scotch may leave Scotland only in bottles already labelled for retail sale, so it is all bottled in Scotland. Whisky from other countries can use the words single malt under its own national rules, which are not always the same as Scotland’s.

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