The Resilience of Blends

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Much attention has been paid of late to the buoyancy – or otherwise – of the whisky market, so we asked an industry insider what it all means for blended Scotch. Do single malts still reign supreme – or could changing attitudes free up a little more space on the whisky shelf for blends?

The world has changed. The Scotch whisky industry – in tune with the global marketplace for spirits – has spent the past generation relentlessly pursuing the p-word: premiumisation. And it’s been largely successful, with consumers from São Paulo to Shanghai persuaded to pay more money for better liquid in their glass.

That phenomenon reached its zenith in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, since when Scotch – again, reflecting broader market trends – has endured a pretty vicious hangover, thanks to a number of factors, from conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East to the cost of living crisis, spiralling inflation and macroeconomic weakness in key markets such as the US and China.

The net result is that, according to official HMRC data, export shipments of Scotch last year were practically identical to those of 2019, at the equivalent of around 1.3bn bottles. What has changed in the intervening period, however, is the share of the market enjoyed by single malts and blends.

Blended Scotch brands like Ardray have always dominated the global Scotch market, but their share has been steadily eroded over the past few decades by the rise and rise of single malt, which peaked in 2023, when export shipments broke through the £2bn barrier – a share figure of 36%, compared to bottled blends at £3.1bn, or 55%.

What’s happened since then? Single malts have seen £400m wiped off their combined value, with shipments dipping 20% to reach £1.6bn in 2025, while blends have ticked up slightly to £3.2bn. As a result, single malt’s market share has dropped to 29%, while bottled blends have risen to 60%.

There are a number of reasons for this change. One is the travails of the US market, a single malt stronghold, but one which has suffered more than most during the post-Covid correction. Rising single malt prices have proven to be out of tune with the sentiment of consumers who simply don’t feel as wealthy as they did a few years back.

As the US has declined, other destinations have stepped up. Since 2019, Scotch shipments to India have soared 72% by value and 68% by volume, making it the industry’s biggest market in volume terms. Meanwhile, Türkiye has seen stratospheric growth, with volumes surging from 15m bottles in 2019 to 53m bottles last year. Value gains have been even more impressive: from £47m in 2019 to £255m in 2025. Success in both of these markets has been largely, although not exclusively, spearheaded by blends.

So, as the data illustrates, blends remain the heartbeat of the Scotch whisky industry, and even more so as consumers around the world become more cautious about parting with their cash. As a result, people have reappraised their relationship with Scotch – and rediscovered the compelling value proposition that well-executed blends like Ardray offer.

Single malts still perform a vital role for the Scotch whisky industry, but their rise to prominence was accompanied by – for some consumers and even a few distillers – a presumption that they were somehow superior to blends – unadulterated, the product of a single point of origin and somehow more ‘authentic’.

Most true whisky lovers, including those responsible for making the product, have never bought into this. The creation of a blend like Ardray is a meticulous, painstaking process, part-art, part-science, that elevates its individual malt and grain components to new levels of balance and complexity – a transformation into something much greater than the sum of its parts.

The result is a product with a winning combination of attributes for today’s whisky drinker: one that offers keen value for money, alongside great versatility (cocktails, mixed drinks, neat/on the rocks) and one that is – most importantly of all – just damned tasty. Blended Scotch whiskies never really went away, but in today’s changing times they are enjoying a well-earned renaissance all around the whisky world.

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