10 Facts About Scotch whisky

All Scotch whisky must be aged in oak barrels for at least three years.

Any age statement on a bottle of Scotch whisky, expressed in numerical form, must reflect the age of the youngest whisky used to produce that product.

Scotch whisky tourism has developed around the industry, with distilleries being the third most visited attraction in Scotland; roughly 2 million visits were recorded in 2018.

Nonetheless, Scotch whisky is produced according to the current regulations, as to ageing, production, and so on, ensuring that it remains Scottish.

The latter exclusion is to ensure that a blended Scotch whisky produced from single malt and single grain distilled at the same distillery does not qualify as single grain Scotch whisky.

Five Scotch whisky definitions are structured in such a way that the categories are mutually exclusive.

The 2009 regulations changed the formal definition of blended Scotch whisky to achieve this result, but in a way that reflected traditional and current practice: before the 2009 SWR, any combination of Scotch whiskies qualified as a blended Scotch whisky, including for example a blend of single malt Scotch whiskies.

Single grain Scotch whisky is made with water and malted barley but the distillery then adds other grains or cereals, wheat, corn, or rye, for example.

Term blended grain Scotch refers to whisky that contains at least two single grain Scotch whiskies from at least two distilleries, combined to create one batch of the product.

The Scotch whisky-producing islands other than Islay are not recognised as a distinct region by the SWA, which groups them into the Highlands region.