the library

Blended Scotch whisky

Spirits & brews· spirit

What it is

Blended Scotch whisky is a mix of malt and grain whiskies distilled and matured in Scotland, blended to a consistent house style.

What it tastes like

On the nose: astringent, acid; the house adds malt, honey ✳.

Every one of its 3 compounds carries a paper the library can cite.

• gallic acidtasteacidreads as astringentMeasured in 5 of 341 ingredients.cite

  Named as the possible identity of formula C7H6O5, a variable the malt-versus-blend OPLS-DA model (n = 85) found significant on the MALT side, i.e. a cask-extractive phenolic acid present at systematically lower relative abundance in blended Scotch than in single malt in this corpus. — Kew et al. 2016, Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (Table 3, row for formula C7H6O5)
• syringic acidtastephenolreads as astringentMeasured in 1 of 341 ingredients.cite

  Named as the possible identity of formula C9H10O5 (m/z 197.0455386 in the untargeted FT-ICR MS spectra), one of the variables the malt-versus-blend OPLS-DA model (n = 85: 24 single malts, 28 blends) found significant for discriminating the two styles, on the MALT side. The paper states blends are discriminated by higher relative abundance of carbohydrate-type species while 'the malts have a higher relative abundance of cask extractive compounds' -- meaning this cask-derived phenolic acid is detected in the corpus (which includes 28 blends) but at systematically lower relative abundance in blended Scotch than in single malt. — Kew et al. 2016, Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (Table 3, 'Key Variables (Formulae) Discriminating Between Malts and Blends for the OPLS-DA Model', row for formula C9H10O5)
• ellagic acidtastephenolreads as sour, astringentMeasured in 2 of 341 ingredients.cite

  Named as the possible identity of formula C14H6O8, a variable the malt-versus-blend OPLS-DA model (n = 85) found significant on the MALT side. As with syringic acid, this is a cask-extractive phenolic detected across the corpus at lower relative abundance in blends than in single malts per the model's own discriminant direction. The paper separately reports this same formula (via its exact mass) among the most abundant discriminating species between ex-Sherry and ex-Bourbon cask maturation within the malt subset, underscoring that its level tracks oak-cask extraction generally. — Kew et al. 2016, Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (Table 3, row for formula C14H6O8)