Single malts are viewed by most as the crème de la crème of the Scotch whisky world.

According to the rules, a single malt Scotch whisky is a Scotch whisky produced from only water, yeast and malted barley at a single distillery by batch distillation in pot stills.

However – as many of you will know – there is a huge variation between individual casks. The wood is different, the location in the warehouse is different and indeed different casks may be even matured in different warehouses.

Every cask has its own unique characteristics; some casks will never make it into a single malt – they are just not good enough or they can have an off note, caused by some stray bacteria left in a cask. The spirit in each may have a different colour or a different alcohol content.

Yet the customer quite rightly expects that the bottle of 12-year-old single malt he or she buys this year will be exactly the same as the bottle of 12 year old they bought from the same distillery the year before, and the year before that, and next year too!

So, given that every cask is even just a wee bit different to the one next to it, how can a distillery guarantee that their bottle of single malt is the same product, year in, year out?

Well, that is where whisky makers such as I have the glorious job of taking a great selection of single malt casks – from the one distillery – and carefully crafting them into the same consistent product our customers know and love.

Smell and taste of course are the key – and we spend many days, weeks and years learning our trade – so we can sniff and taste the subtle differences which make each single malt unique.

And let’s not forget colour too. To my mind the best single malts are uncoloured – they have no caramel added – and the richness of hue in the bottle comes from the sherry casks in which they have lain for years.

So in the end all we do is to carefully blend the casks (yes, blend them!) for aroma, taste and colour, and the only thing we add is water to bring the malt to a consistent ABV. To give a naturally-coloured, non-chill filtered, truly wonderful single malt.

It sounds simple, but believe me it is not!

In some years, when we are making say, a 12-year-old, we may add some older casks (but never younger!) from the same distillery to give us the final product our customers expect.

That is what I did for many years for many different whisky brands.

Now, some people say that they will only enjoy a single malt and indeed I have entertained many visitors who have said that they only drink a certain age of whisky. Everyone should enjoy the whisky they want, and, in the way, they want it but for me whisky has always been and will always be a journey of exploration.

I have nosed and sampled hundreds of thousands of individual casks and thousands of whiskies. Single malts have brilliant characteristics and once you go on the journey you will explore more and more and many times you will come back to your trusted brand, nose and flavour.

Which brings me to a blended malt – a category which has created a lot of interest in recent years.

Again, the rules say that a blended malt Scotch whisky is a blend of two or more single malt Scotch whiskies from different distilleries and, as such, their flavours are as rich and varied as the entire distillery map of Scotland, from honeyed fruitiness to full-on peat smoke.

For a whisky maker, the world of possibilities expands enormously, and blended malts allow a maker to imagine the whisky they want, and then create it using a much greater palette of ingredients.

This is what I am now able to do at the Ardgowan Distillery Company, which will be building a distillery in my home town of Inverkip.

It will be a few years until we will be producing our own spirit, so in the meantime they have given me free reign (more or less!) to create my own series of whiskies under the ‘Clydebuilt’ label.

This allows me to seek out and find the best casks – of whatever age and location – and bring them together to create our very own series of whiskies. And in many cases these will be blended malts.

Our first whisky – Coppersmith – is to my mind unique. Every whisky in this blended malt has been matured in first-fill Oloroso sherry casks, giving an end result that is as rich as a Christmas cake, with a super balance of sweet and spicy, heather honey, sultanas and very dark chocolate. As far as I know, this is the first time a blended Scotch malt has been made with 100 percent first-fill casks.

I am very proud of it, and in the Clydebuilt series we will definitely introduce another blended malt in the fairly near future. After that – well let’s wait and see!

While I will always enjoy single malt, I believe blended malts offer an exciting new way for whisky lovers to taste and enjoy Scotland’s greatest natural product.

Be brave, be adventurous, and nose a blended malt today!