Single Malt Scotch at the Whiskey For Sale Shop

Single Malt Scotch is a type of single malt whisky, distilled by a single distillery in a pot still, using malted barley as the only grain ingredient in Scotland. As with any Scotch whisky, a Single Malt Scotch must be distilled in Scotland and matured in oak casks in Scotland for at least three years (most single malts are matured for longer).

• "Single" indicates that all the malts in the bottle come from a single distillery. Multi-distillery malts are usually called "blended malt", "vatted malt" or "pure malt".

• "Malt" indicates that the whisky is distilled from a single "malted" grain. Not all grains can be malted - (rye is another grain which can be malted) - but in the case of single malt Scotch, barley is always the grain used.

All single malt Scotch goes through a similar batch production process, as outlined below. At bottling time various batches are mixed together or vatted to achieve consistent flavours from one bottling run to the next. Even so, some variation does occur, both intentionally and due to inexperience, and as such some distilleries will be better at creating consistent expressions than others. Also, distillers (both independent and official) may choose to change expressions in any way to attract more or a different kind of buyer. On the other hand, distillers might also choose to make batch variation into an asset, such as Edradour - which at the time was too small to maintain batch consistency - did after it was taken over by a new owner in 2002.

To be called a single malt Scotch, a bottle may only contain whisky distilled from malted barley produced at a single distillery. If the bottle is the product of single malt whiskies produced at more than one distillery, the whisky is called a vatted malt, or a blended malt. If the single malt is mixed with grain whisky, the result is a blended Scotch whisky. Single malts can be bottled by the distillery that produced them or by an Independent Bottler.

The age statement on a bottle of single malt Scotch is the age of the youngest malt in the mix, as commonly the whiskies of several years are mixed together in a vat to create a more consistent house style.

On occasion the product of a single cask of whisky is bottled and released as a "Single Cask."

While "cask-strength", or undiluted, whisky (often having an alcohol content as high as 60%) has recently become popular, the vast majority of whisky is diluted to its "bottling strength" - between 40% and 46% ABV - and bottled for sale.

It should also be noted that for whisky, unlike wine, the maturation process does not continue in the bottle.

Independent bottlers, such as Gordon & MacPhail, Murray McDavid, Signatory, Hart Brothers, and Cadenhead, buy casks of single malts and either bottle them immediately or store them for future use. Many of the independents began as stores and merchants who bought the whisky in bulk and bottled it for individual sales. Many distilleries do not bottle their whisky as a single malt, so independent bottlings are the only way the single malt gets to market. The bottling process is generally the same, but independents generally do not have access to the distillery's water source, so another source is used to dilute the whisky. Additionally, independents are generally less concerned with maintaining a particular style, so more single year and single cask bottlings are produced.

Distillation of whisky has been performed in Scotland for centuries. The earliest written record of whisky production in Scotland from malted barley is an entry on the 1494 Exchequer Rolls, which reads "Eight bolls of malt to Friar John Cor, by order of the King, wherewith to make aqua vitae."

In the following centuries, the various governments of Scotland began taxing the production of whisky, to the point that most of the spirit was produced illegally. However, in 1823, Parliament passed an act making commercial distillation much more profitable, while imposing punishments on landowners when unlicensed distilleries were found on their properties. George Smith was the first person to take out a licence for a distillery under the new law, founding the Glenlivet Distillery in 1824.

In the 1830s, Aeneas Coffey refined a design originally created by Robert Stein for a continuous still which produced whisky much more efficiently than the traditional pot stills, but with much less flavour. Quickly, merchants began blending the malt whisky with the grain whisky distilled in the continuous stills, making the first blended Scotch whisky. The blended Scotch proved quite successful, less expensive to produce than malt with more flavour and character than grain. The combination allowed the single malt producers to expand their operations as the blended whisky was more popular on the international market. As of 2004, over 90% of the single malt Scotch produced is used to make blended Scotch.