What is it about Scotch that makes it the choice of the sophisticated and the suave? For one thing, its fabled history, which began around A.D. 1300. For another, the subtle yet incomparable taste of malted barley tinged with peat smoke. (To “malt” barley is to control germination in a way that’s far too technical to go into here; suffice to say that it helps convert starch into fermentable sugar.) The malted barley acquires its smokiness as it dries in a peat-burning kiln.
Prized single malt Scotch is made only from malted barley and at a single distillery. Yet close to 90 percent of the market is cornered by blended Scotch, made from up to 50 different types of Scotch selected by a master blender.