Chivas Regal 18 was launched in 1997 as the personal project of Colin Scott, the firm's long-serving Master Blender, who had joined Chivas Brothers in 1973 and would oversee the brand for four decades. Scott's brief was to create a blend that could stand alongside the finest single malts in depth and complexity, and he answered with a recipe that has been described — by Chivas itself, but not unfairly — as containing eighty-five distinct flavour notes.
The malt content is unusually high for a mainstream blend, drawing on aged Speyside stock from Strathisla, Longmorn, Glen Keith and others within the Chivas Brothers fold. Sherry-cask influence is more pronounced than in the 12, giving the dark chocolate, fig and treacle character that defines the dram.
It arrived at a moment when single malts were beginning their commercial ascendancy, and was widely read as the blenders' reply: proof that the art of marrying whiskies could yield something as serious as any single distillery bottling. Two decades on, the argument is largely settled — the malts won the volume war — but Chivas 18 remains exhibit A for the defence.
It is the bottling I would put in front of anyone who dismisses blends as inherently inferior. At 40% it sacrifices some intensity, and a higher strength would suit it well, but the structure and depth are not in doubt. A genuinely fine whisky.
