🥃 Single Grain Scotch Whisky

Single Grain Scotch Whisky is Scotch distilled at a single distillery that is neither single malt nor blended Scotch. It is most often made from malted barley with wheat or maize and distilled in column stills. Like any Scotch, it is matured for at least three years in oak casks and bottled at 40% vol. or more.

“Grain” here does not mean “no malt”. According to the Scotch Whisky geographical indication technical file, grain Scotch must also contain malted barley: only its enzymes turn the starch into sugar, because adding other enzymes is banned. The unmalted cereals are first cooked in hot water to liquefy the starch, cooled to about 65 °C and mixed with the malt.

The wort is cooled to 15–23 °C and fermented with yeast for two to three days. The wash is usually distilled continuously in column stills; the traditional design is the Coffey or patent still, patented by Aeneas Coffey in 1830. Distillation must stay below 94.8% vol. so that the spirit keeps the aroma of its raw materials.

Grain whisky is usually lighter in aroma than malt whisky, so it often goes into blends. When the whisky of a single grain distillery is not blended with any other Scotch, it is sold as Single Grain Scotch Whisky. It may not leave Scotland in wooden casks.

Why it matters to you. “Single” means one distillery, not one type of grain or one cask. Single grain Scotch is not a characterless neutral spirit: the law caps the distillation strength, and maturation lasts at least three years in oak. The age on the label is that of the youngest whisky in the bottle. WHO: no amount of alcohol is safe.