Single malt whisky (and sometimes a third) time. The final spirit, called "new make spirit", generally has an alcohol content of 60 to 70%. Most new-make malt whisky is diluted to about 62.5% a.b.v. before it is placed in casks to mature. The "new-make spirit", or unaged whisky, is then placed in oak casks to mature. By law, all Scotch whisky must be aged for a minimum of three years in oak casks, though many single malts are matured for much longer. The whisky continues to develop and change as it spends time in the wood, and maturation periods of twenty years or
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