Blended Scotch Whisky

Caro Griffin 29.Jul.2026

Blended Scotch outsells every single malt on the shelf combined — and it's still treated like the bottom one.

Welcome to Between Drinks, a podcast where we dive into the stories behind the drinks you love… and the ones you’re about to love.

I went into this episode with the same bias most people have: blended Scotch is the well drink, the thing you order when there's nothing better. Single malt is where the craft lives... right?

Then I sat down in Leith — the old whisky-trading port of Edinburgh, where wine merchants and grocers started blending casks by hand back in the 1800s — with Pete Allison, co-founder and Head of Whisky at Woven, a blending house that doesn't own a single still.

We get into how blending actually works, why Pete sources whisky from South Africa to Taiwan, and why he'd argue blending — not distilling — is the most creative job in the entire industry.

By the end, you won't look at a blended Scotch the same way again.

Blended Scotch Whisky

Listen to this episode to hear all about:

Why blended Scotch (not single malt!) is the original whisky, and still outsells it more than 5 to 1
How Victorian-era grocers in Leith invented blending, and why that neighborhood is still ground zero for it today
Why Pete thinks blending is the most creative job in whisky — "creativity through constraints," not a blank canvas
How a blending house with zero stills builds flavors Scotland alone can't, using whisky from countries that haven't historically made it
And why "pop it, throw away the cap" might be the most respectful thing you can do with a great bottle