Without boring you too much with the analytics, in the last quarter we’ve noted a distinct increase in the number of customers both enquiring about, and purchasing, our blended malts here at GreatDrams. I have to say, that brings a huge smile to my face, and not purely for the obvious reasons either.

While I of course love virtually all whisky, if done right, you simply cannot beat a fine blended whisky. Blended whiskies are basically whiskies made from a mixture of different drams, including grain whisky. Blended whisky is not to be confused with blended malt, which is made from single malt whisky from one distillery.

Initially, blended whisky was created to offer a smoother, more mellow drinking experience for people who found single malt Scotch too harsh on the throat. By combining strong malt whisky with milder, smoother drams, blended whiskies helped provide a gateway into the world of whisky and made the spirit more accessible and inclusive.

Since the mid-19^th century, blended whisky proved hugely popular right up until the 1970s. Since then, it has been losing ground to more refined single malts. Recently however, it has been enjoying somewhat of a renaissance, and we here at GreatDrams are all for it!

As you can probably guess, for today’s blog, I’m going to be writing about why blended whisky is once again growing in popularity.

Don’t Call it a Comeback

In the immortal words of LL Cool J ‘don’t call it a comeback’, when talking about blended whisky.

Despite blended whisky proving slightly less popular following the surge in demand for single malt Scotch during the 1970s, it never fully dropped off and there has always been a market for it. Then of course, you had hugely popular blended Irish whiskey like Jameson and Bushmills, which were big hits across the Atlantic as well. These helped ensure that blended whisky was never far away.

It wasn’t that blended whisky ever fell out of favour, it’s just that tastes began to change, and as the demand for single malt whisky grew, blended whisky was simply overlooked. Single malt whisky began getting a reputation for being a more premium and refined tipple and it became the aged whisky of choice for drinkers not only here in the UK, but across the world too.

Clever marketing, along with a sharp increase in premium-quality single malts, meant that “true whisky aficionados” only drank single malt whisky. If you wanted to be taken seriously as a whisky drinker, you simply had to been seen ordering a single malt Scotch at the bar, and lord help you if you dared to add a wee drop of water to it!

Thankfully, that kind of whisky snobbery didn’t stick around for long, and thanks to quality, popular blended drams like Johnnie Walker Black Label, there was still more than enough room for a blended dram in the world of whisky.

A Greater Appreciation of the Art of Blending

While I can’t speak for the whole of society many decades ago, there were most certainly once a select few individuals who believed that making a blended whisky was simply a case of choosing two drams at random, mixing them together, and hoping for the best.

As the years went by however, and people began learning more about their drams of choice, where they came from, and how they were produced, they began learning just how much hard work, dedication, knowledge, and skill actually went into producing a blended whisky.

Thanks to Master Blenders like Stephanie Macleod, Richard ‘The Nose’ Paterson OBE, Dr. Bill Lumsden, Dr. Emma Walker, and so many more, people began appreciating the true artform of creating a world-renowned blended Scotch.

A blended whisky is a marriage between grain and malt expressions from different distilleries. Different whiskies have different notes and characters and, when combined with different drams correctly, these different flavours and characters not only bring the best out of each other, they work in synergy to create something that tastes even more special. The difficult part is knowing how to achieve this. This is why Master Blenders are considered true artists, as there are only a very small percentage of people in the world who possess the traits needed to achieve such a title.

Everything from the climate and existing flavour profile to the cask type and maturation period are taken into consideration when making a blended dram. Thanks to various whisky experiences, distillery visits, and the wonders of books and the internet, whisky drinkers could truly appreciate just how much work goes into making a blended dram, and how much skill and expertise was required. Subsequently, this helped make the blends even more special, as drinkers had a greater understanding of how difficult it was to achieve such a perfect balance of notes and flavours.

More Choice and More Variation

Another factor driving this increase in demand for blended whisky is the simple fact that there is currently more choice and more variation out there than ever before.

Thanks to distilleries getting more imaginative, not to mention the fact that independent bottlers such as ourselves are able to push boundaries and get more creative with the expressions we release, there are so many different blended drams out there to choose from.