Almost all whisky, unless the label clearly states that it’s bottled from a single cask or barrel, is a blend, in the sense that it’s made from a combination of different whiskies. That’s right: Even single malts with age statements are blends. In that instance, someone very skilled and qualified has access to a warehouse full of sleeping whisky and chooses different barrels to make up the blend, all of which contain malts that were made in the same facility but have a range of characteristics – perhaps different ages, cask types, warehouse conditions, and so forth. Then, they’re all married together to create a whisky with a specific flavor profile. The person who has this job is called a Master Blender, and they’ve trained hard on many levels to understand the inner workings of whisky making, including several years in intense scientific education.
Apart from single malts, master blenders make blended whisky that is labeled as such – in Scotland, that means whisky that is made up of different malts that might come from a range of distilleries, and may also include grain whisky. In the United States, blended whiskey must include at least 20% straight whiskey, with the remainder made up of any whiskey or neutral spirits (20% is a minimum – some blended whiskeys are nothing but straight whiskey).
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Scotch Whisky
Amanda Schuster: I happen to be a big fan of grain whisky since I think they add significant texture to a blend. As a master blender, what properties do you look for when you choose a grain whisky? Do you build the blend around them, or do you use them as a cook does spices to enhance what’s already there?
John Glaser: We look at grain whiskies just as we look at malt whiskies—as flavor profiles. Grain whiskies can range from light and really boring (we don’t use this style) to sweet and full of vanilla (after 10 years in a first-fill barrel) to deeply rich and staggeringly delicious (when aged for 20 or more years in American oak). The use of a grain whisky, just like the use of a given malt whisky, is based on the style you are trying to create for your whisky recipe. As folks come to understand this, it will open their minds to what blending malt whisky with grain whisky can be!
Consider the difference between Compass Box Asyla and Compass Box Double Single: both fall under the category of Blended Scotch Whisky, made with a combination of malt whiskies and grain whiskies, but one is delicate, appropriate for an aperitif, while the other is deeper, more beguiling and complex, better suited as a late-evening drink. The Asyla uses the grain whiskies as a sweet foundation (even though they are just 50% of the blend), while The Double Single uses the grain whiskies as a complement to the malt whisky (at about 30% of the recipe) to add an extra dimension.
AS: Your approach to blending is quite unique. There is certainly a less-is-more thing going on, most evident in the latest Double Single release where only two whiskies are used. That’s a lot of pressure for two whiskies! For the individual selections, do you go in knowing what sort of cask finish and approximate level of maturity is going to get the job done, or do you have to assess what is available and taste different styles before making the final decisions about which ones will complement the other?
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JG: The way we approach making new whiskies is a creative process, so it’s rare that two whisky projects would be the same in. Some projects involve assessing and combining mature whiskies, then letting the final blend marry in cask, blended, for anywhere from three months to three years. Some involve using some cask-finished components, perhaps made specifically for a project. Some projects involve combining the components and then finishing the whole batch.
Warm-Climate Whiskey
Blending for a whisky like Kavalan is very unique in that it involves casks that have matured at a more rapid rate due to the hot warehouse climate in Taiwan, and some can go “over the hill” too quickly. I wanted to know what choosing a blend is like under those conditions – is it built out from one whisky that seems like a good base and layers are added, or are a number of whiskies tasted and evaluated before deciding?
A spokesperson from Kavalan had this to say: “All of the whiskies for mixture casks or single casks need to be decided by Master Blender Ian Chang. Ian will taste each cask in the maturation warehouse, and once the whisky reaches the flavor and the quality that we want, we will bottle it directly. A number of whiskies will be tasted and then Ian will decide which compliments another… Ian examines and tastes every batch to make sure that they are ready to be bottled according to his experience.”
AS: What are the attributes you look for when it comes to creating a consistent product?
John Little: While we do measure each batch against the previous batches before bottling, consistency is not our ultimate goal when we blend. We want to be consistently great, but if there are slight variances between batches, that’s ok to us. It’s sort of the nature of our small batch (three to five barrels at a time) process. But, the batches do need to have some similarities. Here’s our process:
Once those barrels are ready, he dumps them into the bottling run batch, mingling barrels from the master blend. Sort of a blend…of a blend. That gives us a bit of consistency from batch to batch.
AS: Are there unique challenges to selecting whiskey for American blends?
AS: This is something I and many whisky fans have been wondering for years: What happens to a whisky that doesn’t make the cut for a specific blend? Does it have a chance at life in another blend, or is it retired to a sort of whisky heaven?
EW: For Johnnie Walker blends, we can choose from more than eight million casks of maturing Scotch whisky, giving us a flavor palette like no other. So you could say we are very much in whisky heaven! It’s not so much about a whisky not making the cut. It’s more about timing and opportunity; allowing a whisky to develop and choosing it at the right moment, for use in the right blend, that is the real skill.
