Dave Broom - Single Malts and Blends
Dave Broom - Single Malts and Blends
Author: Dave Broom
Source: Whisky: The Manual (2014)
Advent placement: 2025-12-04 (paired with [[04-dewar-s-caribbean-smooth-blended-scotch-whisky]])
Theme: Single malt as a solitary peak; blends as a range of rolling hills - not better or worse, just different.
Verbatim source text
Reproduced from calendar/2025-12-04.qmd (Whisk(e)y Advent 2025).
For these reasons, grain whiskies are usually cheaper to produce, and have a gentler and lighter flavor that malt whiskies. Most of the whisky coming out of Scotland are blended whiskies, but it’s typically single malt whiskies that get all the glory1. From Dave Broom’s 2014 Whisky: The Manual,
“A single malt is like a solitary mountain peak. There are supporting flavors, but the peak rises above them. Blends are like a range of rolling hills. They are beautiful to look at, but part of a wider landscape. They are not better, or worse. They are different.”
Footnotes
But remember, a single malt whisky is just a blend of malted whiskies from a single distillery.↩︎