Call a Spade a Spade

Back in August of 2005 (in a story called A Rose By Any Other Name) I talked about the SWA-proposed nomenclature for the whisky industry.

In that story I went over the pros and cons for the existing and proposed nomenclature:

There are several terms in play. Let's look at them objectively:

VATTED MALT

There are those purists who feel that the term “Vatted malt” should be used. 

Pros:

This is the term that has been used for years, and those familiar with Scotch whisky know that “vatted malt” means a blend of single malts.

Cons: 

All whiskies (aside from single cask) are vatted before bottling.

More than that - The term simply sucks. We are trying to minimize confusion among and attract new drinkers – who wants to drink something from a “vat?”

BLENDED MALT

The Scotch Whisky Association wants to use  "Blended Malt":

Pros:

It's accurate. The products in question are comprised of a mixture of single malts. In my book, that's a "Blend." 

Cons:

Companies producing vatted whiskies feel that this term demeans the blended malts in question and may cause confusion among new drinkers through an unwanted association with “Blended Scotch whisky” the term used when describing a whisky which is created by combining single malt whisky(ies) with grain whisky.

MALT SCOTCH WHISKY

An alternate term, pushed by some of the vatters is "malt Scotch whisky.”

John Glaser (Compass Box Whisky) was quoted as saying:

“Blends are perceived by many consumers to be inferior products. The potential damage of using the word blend is far greater than sticking with vatted malt or simply using malt Scotch whisky.”

Pros:

None. While I cannot argue with John’s logic, I think this term only benefits producers of vatted whiskies.

Cons:

The term is simply too generic and too easily confused with Single malt scotch whisky and for that reason is just unacceptable.

Small Isle of Skye based distillery Pràban Na Linne is relaunching its vatted Poit Dhubh unchilfiltered malt range as the far hipper PD and had planned to use the designation “malt Scotch whisky.” Douglas Smith, Commercial Director of the distillery, contends that his whisky will seriously be harmed by being forced to label as blended:

“We’re currently selling PD at the same price point as some single malts. If we start sticking ‘blended malt’ on the labels, the danger is that customers who are unfamiliar with the brand and the definitions might assume it’s an inferior product and opt for the ‘safer bet’ of a single malt.”

Are you talking about the same people who pay $60 for the apparently inferior blended Johnnie Walker Green?

And as far as being "unfamiliar with your brand?" Tough titties. That's what a marketing department is for.

I concluded the story with:

If you were waiting for me to come up with some fantastic term that no one has thought of, I hate to disappoint. There’s a better term out there somewhere. But I don’t know what it is.

I think the reason that I couldn't come up with anything was that I, like everyone else, was looking for one word terms (e.g., "blended" or "vatted") that were clear and concise and removed all confusion.

It was only later that I came to the conclusion that this is an impossible task - a single word can never be selected which will be both descriptive and concise enough to meet the needs of the novice, the connoisseur, the SWA and the industry.

So I now propose the most straightforward solution I can think of - calling a spade a spade*.

A Modest Proposal (apologies to Mr. Swift)

Instead of trying to select single word terms which are at best confusing and at worst clarify absolutely nothing, I suggest that the single terms are replaced with descriptor tag-lines.

1. What is referred to as a "Single Malt" should continue to be called Single Malt.

Macallan
A Single Malt

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2. What is referred to as a "Single Grain" should continue to be called Single Grain.

Cameron Brig
A Single Grain Whisky

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3. What is referred to as a "Vatted Malt", a "Pure Malt", or a "Blended Malt" should include on the label A Blend of Single Malts. For example:

Johnnie Walker Green
A Blend of Single Malts

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4. What is referred to as a "Blended Scotch" should include on the label A Blend of Single Malts and Grain Whiskies. For example:

Johnnie Walker Black
A Blend of Single Malts and Grain Whiskies

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5. What is referred to as a "Blended Grain" should include on the label A Blend of Grain Whiskies. For example:

The Fresh Fruity One
  A Blend of Grain Whiskies

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Thoughts?

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*To call a spade a spade, which means, ironically for this discussion, 'to speak plainly and bluntly; to speak without euphemisms', is first found in Ancient Greece. The exact origin is uncertain; the playwright Menander, in a fragment, said "I call a fig a fig, a spade a spade," but Lucian attributes the phrase to Aristophanes. Later, Plutarch notes that "The Macedonians are a rude and clownish people who call a spade a spade." (It is worth noting that the Greek word translated as "spade" seems actually to mean something like "bowl" or "trough"; the "spade" may be based on a Renaissance mistranslation. In this case the original expression was "to call a bowl a bowl," and thus the "spade" expression is "only" 500, rather than 2,500, years old.)

From: The Mavens' Word of the Day

Comments

[DrWhisky]

re. A Modest Proposal. Although I see the logic in your proposal, I do wish it included more eating of children. Seriously tho, in whisky labelling I see no need to have any bearing on truth. What is needed instead is something memorable. Yes, all single malts are "vatted", so the term might be flawed or even untrue. But if the term "vatted" is branded over time to mean "a blend of single malts"(as it has been to customers by clever retailers for over a decade) then this over-ripe debate can cease. Successful branding has already proven this to us. In the UK what do we call a vaccuum cleaner? In North America, what do we blow our noses into? (Hoover and Kleenex, for the record)What follows from this logic, in my opinion, is that if the whisky industry wants to have successful labeling that will benefit ALL companies AND consumers, a consistent and clear lexicon must be established. As "blended" already has brand value, why on earth would anyone in a tie in a boardroom in an Edinburgh office wish to undo that? Further, it could be argued that Blended Whisky has a certain stigma, so again, what would the industry (or we consumers) gain from having a Blended Cutty Sark 25 year old Whisky and a Blended Compass Box Eleuthera? Lose-lose. Enough for now.

[Rebecca]

I rather like your "Modest Proposal." Being relatively new to the world of whisky, I wasn't entirely clear on what the different designations meant. Your brief descriptions removed that confusion. Whether I'm likely to remember them while ogling the baffling array of choices in my local liquor store is another matter. It would be very nice to have a simple, uniform description on each bottle that does not require decoding. It seems to me that whisky houses that want to keep the current nomenclature would be able to include both terms on their bottles fairly easily.

[Barry Bernstein]

You really hit home with "Call a Spade a Spade". As Canada's only independent bottler of (Scotch) Whisky, we have certain legal restrictions that made labeling our product a real challenge. Specifically, we have to add domestic spirit to any offering. So, even though our products are 99% Single Malt Scotch, the 1% Canadian Malt we add prevents us from calling our product Scotch or Single Malt. Calling our product a Blended Malt would be disastrous to us, as our pricing would make the product unattractive to the typical blended whisky purchaser. More importantly, it would be placed in the wrong section of the liquor store and not found by our target consumer!

We are technically a Vatted Malt Whisky, which is what we call the product, but the term is not well understood. On our label, we have opted for the tag-line, "A blend of Scotch and Canadian Whiskies", placed under "Vatted Malt Whisky". It is not a perfect solution by any means, but avoids the dreaded "Blended" description of the product. Perhaps future offerings can follow your suggestion by being more specific and saying something like, "A blend of a Single Malt Scotch and a Single Malt Canadian Whisky". Well, we'll work on the wording....

[Julian]

Why not for 3 and 5...
3: A Multi Malt
5: A Multi Grain

It's a good parralel to the word "single". The only problem is that then 5 ends up sounding like bread unless you tack on "Whisky".
You could also imagine using "Double malt" or "Triple malt" for the special cases of only a small number of malts...

[Redleg]

I like your proposition and think it would help clarify the various types of whiskys.