Monkey Shoulder Batch 27

In the early 2000s, William Grant & Sons saw an opportunity to bring the Scotch experience to a wider audience by creating a whisky that would be ideal for use in hand-crafted cocktails. The resulting Batch 27, which was named Monkey Shoulder in tribute to William Grant’s whisky making heritage, was designed specifically for mixing. Initially launched in 2003, Monkey Shoulder Blended Scotch Whisky has since become one of the highest ranked whiskies from the Speyside region of Scotland. The whisky has no age statement but is a blend of three Speyside whiskys: Glenfiddich, Balvenie, and Kininvie, with 27 casks total selected for each bottling by malt master David Stewart.

Monkey Shoulder Blended Malt Scotch Whisky gets its formal moniker from the traditional malt whisky making process wherein malt shovelers, better known as “malt men,” turned the malted barley by hand using large, heavy malt shovels. Many of these malt men of the past sustained arm strain injuries in this labor-intensive process. The use of the heavy shovels caused their arms to hang lower than normal, resembling what they endearingly dubbed as "monkey shoulders". This work-related affliction no longer exists, but the name remains as a tribute to their whisky heritage.