After that, go ahead and add ice if you like, or even use it in a cocktail if you prefer. There’s really no wrong way to drink whisky-but experts recommend trying it neat first, perhaps with a few drops of water to open up the palate. Sometimes caramel color is added to maintain consistency. The whisky is then cut with water (unless it’s bottled at cask strength) before bottling. Finally, the new make spirit is put into oak barrels and stored in warehouses for a minimum of three years, but usually much longer than that. This vapor is captured and cooled so it returns to a liquid form with an increasingly higher ABV. Next, the wash is distilled in pot stills at least twice, which heats the alcohol and turns it into vapor. Yeast is then added to the liquid, now called wash, and it is put into large vessels to ferment. The barley is then milled and combined with water and cooked to release the sugars. It must be aged for a minimum of three years in oak barrels.īarley grains are malted (germinated) and then dried to stop the process-sometimes using peat as a heat source to infuse the grain with a smoky flavor. Single malt scotch is defined as whisky that is made in Scotland at one distillery from a mash bill of 100 percent malted barley. This whisky combines the best flavors of bourbon and sherry cask maturation and provides the best complexity of flavor and palate for its price range. The best overall single malt scotch, in a very competitive field, is Aberlour 16. With a style out there for everyone, here are the best single malt scotch whiskies available in a range of categories.

There are more than 120 distilleries in Scotland making single malt whisky-much of which is ultimately destined to be used as a component in blended whiskies, but some of which is bottled as an individual expression of the particular distillery's character.Īberlour 16 Year Old is our top pick because the whisky marries during the sweet spot of maturation and creates a balanced flavor of rich oak, sweet vanilla, ripe fruits, and spices. Distillers are then allowed to get as creative as they’d like, from experimenting with the number of distillations to using a variety of cask finishes. To be considered a single malt scotch, the whisky must be distilled from a mash bill of 100 percent malted barley at one distillery and aged for a minimum of three years in wooden casks. Many scotch enthusiasts may discover that they're well into their journey of appreciation before they ever actually learn what the phrase 'single malt' even means.

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