Drink More Whiskey by Daniel Yaffe

Author:Daniel Yaffe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chronicle Books LLC
Published: 2013-12-30T16:00:00+00:00

Sir Mix-a-Iot

If making whisky is chemistry, blending is an art. The vast majority of the Scotch imbibed around the world is blended. A blended Scotch can be made from malted barley with any other grains and can be a mixture of whiskies from any number of distilleries. With the arrival of technological innovations around 1830 that allowed for quick mass production of lighter grain whisky, blends proved to be a much cheaper way to make shiploads of whisky. A large industrial grain distillery can make as much whisky in a week as a small malt distillery like TALISKER makes in a year. Grain spirits make up the base of blended Scotches (usually anywhere from 10 to 70 percent of the mix), and single malts add most of the flavor to the end product. Grain whisky is the canvas, and malt whisky is the paint that creates the picture. As a general rule, production techniques result in lighter grain blends with less intense flavors than their single-malt counterparts. That’s why you may have seen connoisseurs snub their noses at blends. Approach them with an open mind. They can sometimes surprise you.

Back in the day, when booze was mostly sold at local grocery stores in Scotland, customers would fill up their ceramic jars from a cask of whisky. Somewhere between the bushels of peas and the mounds of chicken gizzards, grocers in the countryside started making blended whiskies. The most famous blender was a boy named Johnnie Walker, who got his start mixing teas at his family’s market. He later started playing around with the barrels of whisky at the shop, mixing them into his own creations. Blending whiskies was a way for him and other grocers to give customers more consistency and offer their own twist on local booze. Johnnie’s Scotch has been selling since the early 1800s, and after he purchased a few distilleries to supply whisky for his blends, the Walker family led the brand for decades of impressive growth. Fueled by a brilliant marketing campaign and international fame, the eponymous blends are still among the top-selling whiskies of the world. Some of the current JOHNNIE WALKER labels are made with a mix of up to fifty different whiskies. You’ll never know the entire makeup of any blends because the brands don’t want them copied, but know that they were a very intentional mix of tastes on the part of the blenders. Using fifty-plus distilleries also ensures consistency. A distiller making a single malt has a narrow color wheel of whiskies from one distillery, but blenders don’t need to limit themselves, as they can work with a much wider spectrum of flavors. If a single malt is a group of violinists with a brilliant tone, a blend might be the full orchestra. By following a recipe of barrels from different distilleries, blenders are trained to make massive quantities that match the taste of the batch that preceded it. It’s the blender’s job to ensure that your whisky tastes identical bottle to bottle, no matter where you drink it.

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