Finding the perfect dram

Scotch whisky comes in several forms. The main ones are single malts (ie unique to one distillery), as well as vatted malts, which are blends of different single malts in one bottle, blended whiskies, being a mix of single malts and grain whiskies, and whiskies that are distilled from grain only.

All in all, there are literally hundreds of Scotch whiskies. To start from scratch to find the one you like best could take years and years. What a wonderful prospect!

You can, though, narrow down your search with a few simple pointers based on your taste preferences.

Whiskies from the Islands generally are the most robust, salty, peaty, smoky tasting of malts. These characteristics being most pronounced in Islay malts.

Whiskies from Speyside – on the eastern side of the Highlands – have more mellow, sweet and fruity flavours.

Highland whiskies will generally be drier to the taste than Speyside, but despite being fed by streams running through peat moorland and heather, show much less peatiness than those from the west.

The fewer distilleries in the Lowland region generally produce softer, lighter, but often very malty whiskies.

For those of you who have not yet established your own particular favourite, a tasting sample from each of these areas can very easily help to further refine your preference. Once having decided what kind of overall taste you prefer, you can start to concentrate on individual distilleries within that area, to arrive at perfection as you see it!