Malt whisky is my passion and has been for the past 10 years. I drink it, collect it, buy it, sell it. Malt whisky is an enduring commodity and if all else fails and the market in everything collapses, then I will have 200 bottles with which to celebrate in royal fashion the end of life as we know it.
If you were to go back 30 years, drinking of single malt whisky was the preserve of the anoraks, those with long beards and campervans. All the rest of the world drank blended whisky such as Bells, Famous Grouse, Teachers and the like. What is the difference I hear you ask? Well blended whisky is put together from malt whiskies from two or more distilleries, which is blended with a grain whisky, made from something other than malted barley (wheat or rye usually), whilst a single malt whisky is from a single distillery.
Cut forward to the present day and many younger people are being drawn away from the traditions of drinking insipid lagers towards real ales, micro-breweries and single malts. The revolution has just begun! A single malt can be very different dependent on a range of factors which I will discuss in subsequent blogs, but it is now a world phenomenon, with distillers as far apart as Sweden, Taiwan, India, Australia, South Africa and even some being produced in the USA alongside the much more popular (over there) bourbons.
I will spend some time discussing in subsequent weeks how whisky is distilled, what Scotch Whisky must be under the 2009 Scotch Whisky Regulations, then I will explore some of influences on whisky, the terroir (ground on which the barley is grown), the wood in which it is matured, the location and the spirit. I will discuss my favourite whiskies and what makes them my favourites and I will look at which whiskies are the most popular, why some old bottles of Macallan can sell for $100,000 plus and a recent collection of old Dalmores sold for well over $1m.
I will also talk about collecting whisky and the ongoing rows between collectors and drinkers, which has inevitably led to a rise in prices of the more popular brands. More to follow soon.! attached with this blog is a map of the Scottish distilleries - there are a lot to choose from. I will be talking about a few! [Scotch Distillery Map.jpg]
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