When asked if she feels any pressure in working with old blending stock, Stephanie Macleod from Dewar’s has a quote — attributed to Gustav Mahler — to hand: “Tradition is not the worship of ashes but the preservation of fire,” she says. You can see why this would resonate with a master blender responsible for preserving the flame of a blending dynasty which has survived for more than 175 years, but today’s market for old blended whisky also shows signs of some worshipping of ashes.
While age may just be a number, with more and more modern consumers coming to recognise that blends can be just as good (or better) than single malts, there is no doubt that old blended whisky is currently booming. This term encompasses both bottles of young stock blended long ago fetching a pretty penny at auction, and
