A Blended Whiskey is usually a masterly blend of two or more single malt whiskey or straight whiskey or even a blend of whiskey and other natural grain spirits and flavourings.

There are many famous blends that we all enjoy, be it Irish Whiskey, American Whiskey, or Scotch Whisky, Canadian Whisky.

Canadian Club, Canadian Mist, Jameson Irish Whiskey, Seagram’s Seven are all blended Whiskey brands while Johnnie Walker, Chivas Regal and J&B are known Scotch Blended Whisky brands.

Now why Blended Whiskey is the preferred Whiskey or Whisky whatever geo tag you give it, when it comes to mixed drinks?

First of all, although Whisky mixed drinks were not uncommon in English or Irish culture but the Single Malts were prized drinks and were preferred neat or on the rocks. It was the early days of distillation in America that the product was not palatable enough and mixing was common, later on during the Prohibition Era, the poor quality spirit the bootleggers and the speakeasies sold were low quality and cocktails of whiskey were popular again.

Thus, although Whiskey having a very individual taste and flavour is not the best liquor to mix cocktails from, they still are used to make cocktails, not by choice, but by virtue of its presence in the history of cocktail and for the sake of all those glorious olden day cocktails that were invented to cover for the poor quality.

Blended Whiskey is particularly favourite when creating cocktails for another reason. That being, since Whiskey cocktails were originally created to cover the poor quality, they are not supposed to retain the fine woody, smoky aroma of a fine malt whiskey, and thus a blended whiskey is a better and cheaper option in cocktails.