🥃 The Single Blend

The single blend is an interesting label as, in Scotch whisky terms at least, it immediately sounds like a complete oxymoron. But, in distilleries where both malt and grain spirit are produced side by side, it does seem the perfect term for a blended whisky where all the components are produced at the same site. Will the Scotch Whisky Association push for this additional category to be included in the regulations any time soon? Perhaps best not to hold your breath.

The most obvious contemporary example of this is at Loch Lomond Distillery. In 1987, it resumed malt spirit production after reopening following a three year silent period. Then in 1994, grain whisky production also commenced. Anyone lucky enough to have had a wee nosey around the distillery itself would have marvelled at the multitude of different still shapes and sizes producing Loch Lomond’s various types of spirit.

More recently, in 2007, William Grant & Sons built its Ailsa Bay malt distillery within its mahoosive Girvan grain complex. And before you write in; yes, I know. Grain complex does sound like the kind of anxiety a single malt snob would suffer from.

With pressure on stocks of Balvenie and Glenfiddich, as their share of the growing single malt market increased, Ailsa Bay was constructed to increase malt spirit production for use in the firm’s blends.

This, however, wasn’t the first attempt at malt whisky production within Girvan distillery...

Back in 1966 – just three years after Girvan had started production – pot stills were added and with that, Ladyburn Distillery was born. Production was fairly short-lived, having stopped in 1975.

Image credit: ladyburn.com

The economic crisis of the second half of the 70s was the prelude to Scotch whisky’s downturn. With the consequences of over-production looming, William Grant & Sons closed Ladyburn distillery.

The vast majority of Ladyburn’s output was used for the Grant’s Standfast blend but there were some single malt bottlings, notably in October 2000 when William Grant released 3000 bottles from single casks, selling for 400 quid a pop.

Image credit: Whisky Auctioneer

Now, there were a number of other malt distilleries, nestled within grain facilities, also operating at this time. Thanks go to subscriber Evan for suggesting this as a topic as it’s a welcome departure from my usual approach of focusing solely on the people behind the drams rather than the distilleries themselves.

Having taken a closer look at this, there appear to have been several grain-malt combos:

Strathclyde - Kinclaith

Dumbarton - Inverleven

North of Scotland - Strathmore

Garnheath / Moffat - Glen Flagler and Killyloch

Invergordon - Ben Wyvis

Ben Nevis

Lochside

And to cover them all here would make for a very long email indeed! But these are definitely themes I plan to explore in future emails - a kind of series, methinks. So, if you have a preference for any of the above, please do get in touch and I’ll cover them first.

Now, the majority of the distillery doublets mentioned above were built in the 1950s and 1960s (although Inverleven dates from the late 1930s). Probably to coincide with the boom period Scotch whisky was experiencing.

However, I did come across one example that predates them by several decades and which really piqued my interest. The well-known grain distillery, whose buildings stand just behind Edinburgh’s Haymarket station, reportedly also once produced malt whisky. And that is, of course, Caledonian Distillery.

Paying subscribers can read more about ‘malt whisky’ production at this now lost grain distillery in tomorrow’s follow-up email.

Slàinte!

Justine