I’ve watched the furore surrounding the proposed English whisky geographical indication (GI) — and, conspicuously, the lack of commotion surrounding American single malt’s newly minted status — with mixed feelings.

For those who’ve missed the news, December 2024 saw the United States’ Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau’s (TTB) issuing of its ‘final rule’ detailing new labelling and production standards for ‘American single malt’ (before now, a more lenient definition of ‘malt whisky’ existed), while 19 February 2025 saw the commencement of a public consultation by the UK’s Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) regarding a proposed GI for ‘English whisky’. While both definitions (the former now set in stone, the latter open to objections until 20 May 2025) are generally what one might expect, both definitions of ‘single malt’ only require that distillation takes place on a single site — with no mention of the mashing or fermentation stages.

This is important because a huge part of single malt’s appeal stems from its provenance. Single malt is globally understood as the ‘essence of a place’, and to suggest that only the location of the distillation stage has a bearing on its identity is ludicrous. The ‘single’ in ‘single malt’ refers to its point of origin at a ‘single’ site. Romantic notions of place and identity aside, it’s what these lax rules permit that should give genuine cause for concern: beer boiling by those too lazy, too cheap, or too inexperienced to make a quality product without external input.

Single malt is a premium product, and it’s reasonable to expect that producers know what they’re doing and have the expertise to manage the entire process. For me, that a prospective producer could buy in beer, run it through a still, bung it in a cask and still claim to be a single malt whisky maker is, at best, unfair to ‘real’ grain to cask distillers and, at worst, enabling those so keen to turn a quick buck that they can’t be bothered to learn how to actually make their whisky — a process that requires mastery of mashing and fermentation, as well as distillation.

I’ve seen various scenarios presented online arguing that there are reasonable reasons why a distiller might not want to undertake the entire process on a single site, but none are convincing. One scenario suggests that a brewer moving into whisky may not have space for stills, instead wishing to install them elsewhere and ship wash from their existing site to the still house. Why pay twice when there’s a perfectly good brewery to supply the wash? I can think of a couple. Firstly, logistics. I’ve heard from international distillers who’ve tried exactly this approach that the practicalities are a pain at best and a recipe for infected, sour wash at worst.

Secondly, financing. The ‘economising’ argument suggests the cost of installing a mash tun and vessels at the distillery site would make whisky making prohibitively expensive for new entrants. This is true, but one has to wonder why a business with such unsound finances that it can’t afford the initial capex is even trying to move into the notoriously capital-intensive business of whisky. In my view, any business lacking the financial means for a couple of washbacks and some pipework should not be moving into single malt, unless its end goal
is bankruptcy.

Then there are the ‘conspiracy theories’. My favourite is that the SWA’s criticism of the English whisky GI is a smokescreen to obscure the fact that England’s document will, laudably, insist on the use of malted UK cereals for the purposes of whisky making — something Scotch whisky’s own rules conspicuously lack. In my view, this is a straw man intended to distract by attacking a perceived lack of provenance in Scotch whisky. While there’s a debate to be had as to whether a UK-grain rule should be introduced for Scotch, this has no bearing on single malt’s identity.

I say this not because I wish ill will to these nascent categories. Instead, my view emanates from a wish for these categories to be built on strong foundations of quality and provenance worthy of single malt’s good name.