I initially published this as a blog post back in 2011. A collection of notes and musings focussed on the topic of Single Malt whisky.

<aside> 📮 Some of the trivia on specific whiskies or distilleries may be out of date at this point – let me know and I will update things as required.

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🤔 Whiskey or Whisky?

Let's get this out of the way first. Which is it? "Whiskey" or "Whisky"? Well – bottom line is that these spellings are used interchangeably by most people. However to keep the semantically oriented happy I thought I better look into this a bit further. It seems that the Scottish maintain a clear distinction here. What they make is "whisky". What everyone else makes is "whiskey".

So there you go. I better use "Whisky" then…

🔎 Types of Whisky

There are two major categories, single and blended. Single means that all of the product is from a single distillery, while Blended means that the product is composed of whiskies from two or more distilleries. But if you want to get more detailed, traditional practices define five types:

• Single Malt - 100% malted barley whisky from one distillery, distilled in batches in pot stills.
• Single Grain - distilled at a single distillery from water and malted barley, with or without whole grains of other cereals; it must not meet the requirements of a single malt whisky.
• Blended Malt - a blend of single malt whiskies, from more than one distillery.
• Blended Grain - created by mixing grain whiskies from more than one distillery.
• Blended Scotch - a mixture of single malt whisky and grain whisky, distilled at more than one distillery. Blended Scotch whisky constitutes over 90% of the whisky produced in Scotland.

<aside> 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 It is easy to get lazy with the terms "Scotch" and "Single Malt". Single Malt whisky can be made anywhere in the world, and many amazing Single Malts are now coming from Taiwan, Japan, and India. Scotch can refer to Blended or Single Malt whisky, but only if it is made in Scotland, and only if the distillation process meets the requirements of the law.

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📦 Oak Casks