Blends & Vatted
The term blended malt refers to the combination of single malts from two or more distilleries, while
the term blended scotch refers to the combination of grain malt and single malt from two or more
distilleries. Although not as popular, there is also blended grain, which refers to the combination of
whiskies from two or more grain distilleries.
Derived from the term Vat (the large vessel that holds whisky), vatting is the process of combining
multiple whisky casks together to achieve a specific and consistent flavour profile. The term has
been used traditionally as a synonym for blending, which changed in recent years.
With the infamous Cardhu “Pure Malt” incident, the differentiation between vatted and blended malts
changed forever. The distillery owned by Diageo decided to blend different single malts from other
Speyside distilleries together as they could not keep pace with the ongoing demand. The highly
controversial decision put an end to the use of ambiguous terms, with vatted malts becoming
blended malts.