Scotch whisky whisky" is any spirit that qualifies as a single malt Scotch whisky or as a blended Scotch whisky. The latter exclusion is to ensure that a blended Scotch whisky produced from single malt(s) and single grain(s) distilled at the same distillery does not also qualify as single grain Scotch whisky. Three types of blends are defined for Scotch whisky: The 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
Single malt Scotch whisky that contained a mixture of both barley and non-barley grain whisky, but this is no longer the case. Under the terminology established by the SWR 2009, the term "blended malt Scotch whisky" replaced the term "vatted malt" to describe a mixture of single malt Scotch whiskies (malted barley whisky). A mixture of malted barley whisky and non-barley whisky is labeled "blended Scotch whisky" (without the word "malt"). The age statement on a bottle of single malt Scotch is the number of years the whisky spent maturing in casks. Very few whiskies are bottled from a single cask, and the