Grades of Whiskey

Here are the various types:

Blended Whisky; This is whisky made for mass production using grain alcohol as the base and blended with a large number of different malt whiskies for character and flavour, each to its own recipe.

Vatted Malts; these are a blend of malt whiskies designed to produce a particular character from many different single malt distilleries. This is sometime also called 'Pure Malt', a misleading term in my personal opinion. This is where Supermarket malts come from.

Single Malts; these are malt whiskies from a single distillery, but will be made up from a number of casks of different ages for mass market distribution and designed to provide a consistent character. They will also usually be 'chill-filtered', e.g.: Glenmorangie, Glenfiddich and so on.

Single Cask Whiskies; this is the high end, usually from independent bottlers who buy single casks to bottle under their own name along with the name of the distillery. These are unique full flavoured whiskies usually un-filtered at varying strengths.

Cask strength; Single cask whiskies at full strength and flavour - the 'grand cru' of malt whisky. These whiskies can be 50%/65% ABV


Of course, 95% of the world just divides whiskey into 'Scotch' & 'the cheap stuff' :-)