What is Vatted Malt Whisky?
Pure Malt: Blending Single Malts – Serendipity or By Design?
The vatted malt is often treated as whisky's poor relation. This article considers what a vatted malt is and what it offers the whisky lover.
One of the least known whiskies is the vatted malt, sometimes confusingly known as blended malt or pure malt. They are sometimes seen as the poor relation of the whisky industry because they are neither a blend nor a single malt, and people rarely understand exactly what they are getting. So, what are they and why would a whisky drinker consider buying one?
Definition
Vatted malts are essentially a marriage of different single malts and contain none of the grain whisky which would otherwise turn it in to a blended whisky. One reason for their introduction was to try and encapsulate the taste of a region or to marry the more desirable characteristics of different malts to produce an entirely new taste. Whisky blending is an art and simply mixing a few single malts together rarely produces a great vatting; but, by mixing the right malts in the correct amounts, you can produce a whole new whisky drinking experience. Vatted malts often comprise just a handful of single malts, but can contain as many as 54. Because there is no grain whisky, there is none of the thinning out that many lovers of single malts object to in blends.
Cynics might say that vatted whisky is a good opportunity for distilleries to get rid of indifferent whisky by mixing it with something else and hoping to produce something more drinkable. This is certainly possible, but the experience of those who enjoy such whiskies is largely positive and such whiskies are often a good deal better than the sum of their parts. Many of the vatted malts available today are well worth seeking out, regardless of the perceived quality of their constituent parts, some of which are rarely, if ever, available as single malts. They are also very competitively priced.
Well-Known Vatted Malts
Some very well-known brands have produced their own vatted malts, including Famous Grouse’s 10 year old malt and Johnny Walker’s Green Label. Other companies have made a name for themselves marrying together whisky from other distilleries and marketing it under more trendy and twenty-something friendly names such as Monkey Shoulder and Sheep Dip. Compass Box offers a selection of superb vattings for all tastes and budgets, including the esoterically named Eleuthera, Flaming Heart, Oak Cross and The Peat Monster. Eleuthera, for instance, vats the Caol Ila and Clynelish to produce a harmonious blend of the smoky and the sweet, without ever becoming too much of either.
Jon, Mark and Robbo produce two vattings, both for around £20 or less, with rather more descriptive names - the Rich Spicy One (a vatting of whiskies from Highland Park, Bunnahabhain, Tamdhu and Glenrothes) and the Smoky Peaty One, which vats whiskies from Mull, Islay and Orkney. For those not ready to take the full-on blast of a Laphraoig or Lagavulin, it is a perfect introduction to smoky and peaty whiskies.
Serendipity?
Some vattings, we are led to believe, arose not through design but through accidents in bottling plants. Ardbeg’s Serendipity is a vatting of some of the oldest and rarest Ardbeg in existence and the infinitely less rare Glen Moray 12 year-old malt. The result was one of the most sought-after whiskies of 2007 and bottles regularly change hands for £60 on the internet.
Vatted malts are far from whisky’s poor relation. Whether they were accidents or by design, they are well worth investigating by the lover of fine malt whisky; not merely as an introduction to some of the more extreme single malts available, but as an enjoyable whisky drinking experience in its own right.
