So, you want to start blending whiskies (you do, really). Good on ya, mate. I suspect by now, however, reality is slowly sinking in and you’re realising that you have no idea where or how to start. Oh, of course you can just randomly put some whiskies together (the ‘blend-n-pray’), and while that can net surprising results at times, most of what you produce will be… not so interesting. A better way to go about it is to have some sort of plan. Decide beforehand what type of blend you want to end up with. You can opt for a single dominant taste: for instance a sherrybomb, a blend with […]

There are a few reasons why you would want to blend your own whisky. I’ve come up with these categories as a guide: Enhancement This is adding just a touch of other whisky to a base whisky. The intent here is to subtly alter the character of the base whisky without meddling with the original taste too much. Recovery Sometimes you buy a bottle of whisky that turns out to be bad or bland. Recovery is adding other whiskies in an attempt to improve the characteristics up to the point that it either becomes drinkable (yay!) or even quite good (double yay!). Creation This is where master blenders for the […]