Blended Scotch

The Scottish malt whisky trade can thank blended whisky for paving the way. It was when John Stein and Aeneas Coffey invented and perfected the continuous still in the 1800s that it became possible to make grain whisky on a large scale. Soon blenders were to discover that they could stretch the more expensive malt whiskies by adding some cheap grain whisky thus bringing the price down. During prohibition in America the canny Scots were able to bring in cheap blends through Canada thus making many fortunes and sealing the popularity of 'Scotch'. In many markets blends are now getting caught by single malts. However they remain extremely important and there are some great examples to try, most of which will not break the bank!