Scotch whisky is malt whisky or grain whisky, made in Scotland. Scotch whisky must be made in a manner specified by law. As of 2018, there were 133 Scotch whisky distilleries operating in Scotland.
Whisky or whiskey is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage made from fermented grain mash or by distilling beer. Various grains are used for different varieties, including barley, corn, rye, and wheat. Whisky is typically aged in wooden casks, generally made of charred white oak.
Single malt Scotch is single malt whisky made in Scotland. To qualify for this category, a whisky must have been distilled at a single distillery using a pot still distillation process and made from a mash of malted barley. As with any Scotch whisky, a single malt Scotch must be distilled in Scotland and matured in oak casks in Scotland for at least three years.
Speyside single malts are single malt Scotch whiskies, distilled in Strathspey, the area around the River Spey in Moray and Badenoch and Strathspey, in northeastern Scotland.
A blended whiskey is the product of blending different types of whiskeys and sometimes also neutral grain spirits, colorings, and flavorings. It is generally the product of mixing one or more higher-quality straight or single malt whiskey with less expensive spirits and other ingredients. This typically allows for a lower priced finished product, although expensive "premium" varieties also exist.
Diageo plc is a British multinational beverage alcohol company, with its headquarters in London, England. It operates in more than 180 countries and produces in more than 140 sites around the world. It was the world's largest distiller until being overtaken by China's Kweichow Moutai on 9 April 2017. It is a major producer of beer and the biggest Scotch whisky company.
Pernod Ricard is a French company that produces alcoholic beverages. The company's eponymous products, Pernod Anise and Ricard Pastis, are both anise-flavoured pastis apéritifs and are often referred to simply as Pernod or Ricard. The company also produces several other types of pastis. It is the world’s second-largest wine and spirits seller.
The Famous Grouse is a brand of blended Scotch whisky, first produced by Matthew Gloag & Son in 1896, and currently produced and owned by The Edrington Group. The single malt whiskies used in The Famous Grouse blend include the Edrington-owned Highland Park and The Macallan. Its emblem is the red grouse, Scotland's national game bird.
William Grant & Sons Ltd is an independent, family-owned Scottish company that distills Scotch whisky and other selected categories of spirits. It was established in 1887 by William Grant, and is run by Grant's descendants as of 2018. It is the largest of the handful of Scotch whisky distillers remaining in family ownership.
Campari America is an American spirits maker. It was launched in 1992 by founder Maurice Kanbar in San Francisco, which is also the headquarters for the company. SKYY vodka was introduced as its first product. Its majority shareholder is the Campari Group.
Cutty Sark is a range of blended Scotch whisky produced by La Martiniquaise. The whisky was created on 23 March 1923 as a product of Berry Bros. & Rudd, with the home of the blend considered to be at The Glenrothes distillery in the Speyside region of Scotland. The name comes from the River Clyde-built clipper ship Cutty Sark, whose name came from the Scots term "cutty-sark", the short shirt [skirt] prominently mentioned in the famous poem by Robert Burns, "Tam o' Shanter". The drawing of the clipper ship Cutty Sark on the label of the whisky bottles is a work of the Swedish artist Carl Georg August Wallin. He was a mariner painter, and this is probably his most famous ship painting. This drawing has been on the whisky bottles since 1955. The Tall Ships' Races for large sailing ships were originally known as The Cutty Sark Tall Ships' Races, under the terms of sponsorship by the whisky brand.
A master blender is an individual who develops specific blended spirits using a combination of spirits with different characteristics. For example, in the Scotch whisky industry, master blenders choose which single malts and grain whiskies to combine to make particular brands of blended whiskey. A master blender is not the same thing as a master distiller, although one person may do both jobs at small craft distilleries. As the name suggests, the blender creates blends using spirits from different casks and is responsible for making sure the product remains consistent across different batches, while the distiller is either directly responsible for the mashing and distilling of spirits or simply holds the title as the administrative and marketing figurehead of the company.
Highland Distillers was founded in 1887 by the Robertson family. In 1970 Highland purchased Matthew Gloag & Son, producers of the Famous Grouse blended whisky and acquired The Macallan single malt Scotch producers in Speyside, in 1996. Highland also produced the Highland Park brand whisky. Highland Distillers was purchased by the Edrington Group in 1999. William Grant & Sons and the Edrington Group took Highland Distillers private in 2000.
Rémy Cointreau is a French, family-owned business group whose origins date back to 1724. The group has an international portfolio of spirits : Rémy Martin and Louis XIII cognacs, Cointreau liqueur, METAXA Greek spirit, Mount Gay rum, St-Rémy brandy, The Botanist gin, Bruichladdich single malts, Port Charlotte, Octomore, Westland American whiskey and Domaine des Hautes Glaces French whisky.
Most distilled spirits that are labelled as "whisky" in India are a form of Indian-made foreign liquor, commonly blends based on neutral spirits that are distilled from fermented molasses with only a small portion consisting of traditional malt whisky, usually about 10 to 12 percent. Outside India, such a drink would more likely be labelled a rum. According to the Scotch Whisky Association's 2013 annual report, unlike the European Union (EU), "there is no compulsory definition of whisky in India, and the Indian voluntary standard does not require whisky to be distilled from cereals or to be matured. Very little Indian 'whisky' qualifies as whisky in the EU owing to the use of molasses or neutral alcohol, limited maturation and the use of flavourings. Such spirits are, of course, considerably cheaper to produce than genuine whisky." Such molasses-based blends make up 90 percent of the spirits consumed as "whisky" in India, although whisky wholly distilled from malt and other grains, is also manufactured and sold.
The Glenglassaugh distillery is a malt scotch whisky distillery which restarted production in November 2008 after being acquired by an independent investment group. Following a complete refurbishment by the new owners the distillery was re-opened on 24 November 2008 by the First Minister for Scotland Alex Salmond.
Tamdhu distillery is a single malt Scotch Speyside whisky distillery, located in the village of Knockando in Banffshire, Scotland. Tamdhu comes from Gaelic for little dark hill.
Beam Suntory, Inc. is an American company which is the subsidiary of Suntory Beverage & Food Ltd, which itself is a subsidiary of Suntory Holdings of Osaka, Japan. Its headquarters are in Chicago, Illinois. It is the third largest producer of distilled beverages worldwide behind Diageo and Pernod Ricard. They acquired 20 brands from Allied Domecq worth $5 billion in 2005, which has turned them into one of the largest producers of whiskey in the international market.
La Martiniquaise is France's second-largest spirits group, founded in 1934, by the father of the current head, billionaire Jean-Pierre Cayard.
