While speaking about Scotches, my husband’s grandfather recently asked why he had heard of single malts, but never of a double malt.

A single malt Scotch is one made from a single distillery and which contains only the distillate from malted barley. The more common whisky is the blended Scotch, which is made from several distilleries and includes distilled spirits from both grain and barley. More recently, with Scotch’s comeback, a very tiny category of vatted malts is finding its way to the market. Vatted malts are a blend from several different distilleries, but, like single malts, contain only the distillate from malted barley. Hence, the concept of a double malt doesn’t exist, which is why he had never heard of them.