1.A Vision for the Future of Scotch whisky.

Where is the industry going? What will it look like in five years? Ten years?

Remember, the Scotch whisky industry has always evolved, and it always will. All the marketing stuff you hear about how “we’ve made this malt whisky the same way for a hundred years” is b.s. Whisky distilling has changed with time. Distilleries are much more efficient producers of alcohol than they used to be. Every step in the process has been studied and researched to determine how to do it more efficiently while maintaining quality consistency. This is good from one perspective, but I think we can argue that we have had a “flavour creep” in the complexity and character of some malts over time, as little changes in the name of efficiency have mounted one upon the other.

Distilleries don’t even need more than one or two people to operate the equipment. Much of it is done by computer and all the operator has to do is monitor a screen!

Six years ago, some people thought I was crazy for starting Compass Box. Some people did not think that you could do whisky in a different way—they did not give us much chance of successfully showing the world that great whisky can be made by blending (challenging the myth that single malt means best), or that you could do anything helpful or innovative in the whisky making process ("we've always done it this way, so this must be the best way..."), or that whisky could be packaged in a more contemporary way.

Now, even have the big companies are trying bold new ventures along these lines (Monkey Shoulder by Grant’s and Jon, Mark & Robbo by Edrington).

So things change and evolve.

Where are we heading in the next five to ten year?

I confidently predict we will see interest continue to grow around the world in high-end, well made Scotch whisky, mainly malt whisky.

I believe we will see more small companies coming into Scotch whisky, and more distilleries being built or re-opened. I think we’ll be seeing at least one or two new distilleries coming on line every year for the next several years.

And I believe that some of these small distilleries will begin examining the entire production process and building high quality back into all the stages. From the choice of barley and yeasts, to fermentation methods and distillation regimes, I think we’ll see visionary distillers trying to build ever greater quality, more flavour interest and more complexity back into spirit. And all this before any consideration of oak maturation, for which there is a massive amount of room for quality improvement in Scotch whisky.

All of this is good for the prospects of Scotch whisky drinking over the coming decade and beyond. I think that now that whisky quality consistency has been mastered in the last 30 or 40 years, it’s time to revisit quality from the perspective of flavour interest. Exciting times to come!

2. Blending: The Most Misunderstood Aspect of Scotch Whisky Making.

Let me tell you what I think whisky blending is all about.

Whisky blending is a craft.

Whisky blending is about the combining of two (or more) liquids together and discovering how they will interlock with each other, how they will knit together, what new flavour profiles they will form together.

In whisky blending, one plus one never equals two. One plus one always equals something more. The blending of two liquids never equals a simple layering of the key flavours of each liquid on top of one another. There is always something new that appears, something new formed deep down at the molecular level of the interaction between two or more flavour compounds from the individual liquids. Sometimes the equation forms something mundane. Sometimes it's intriguing. Sometimes it's absolutely delicious. This latter thing is what great whisky blending is all about.

So you see, it's about creation. About creating something totally new out of disparate components. It's about the creation of something ownable, something special, something no one else has ever created before. Something no single distillery can create.

This is what whisky blending is all about.

3. Everyone Blends.

Ok, that may be overstating it slightly, because because with single cask bottlings for which there is no blender. But with the exception of single cask bottlings, (which comprise just a tiny fraction of annual Scotch whisky production) every brand you can think of, whether single malt or a blended Scotch whisky, has a blender behind it. Let me explain.

Yes, even single malts have blenders. If you’ve ever visited a malt whisky distillery warehouse, you’ll recall seeing rows and rows of casks of various shapes, sizes and origins. Most malt whisky distilleries fill an array of different cask types: first-fill bourbon barrels, second or third-fill hogsheads, Sherry butts from all manner of Sherry styles, Port pipes, etc. Because each of these different casks will mature and flavour the whisky in different ways, you end up with variations on a theme: different casks of the same single malt with different flavour profiles.

This is where the blender comes in. (Some companies may call this person a “quality assurance manager”, but essentially they’re a blender!) He or she is responsible for maintaining a basic recipe of cask types and ages for every new batch (or bottling) of any given single malt. Some single malts will combine many hundreds of casks per batch, and the blender must ensure that the flavour of each batch is consistent.