6 Things You Should Know About Compass Box, One of Scotch Whisky’s Most Innovative Brands

Until 2000, most Scotch consumers saw single malt as the pinnacle. This was in part due to its simplicity: Single malt Scotch is made from just water, yeast, and malted barley. Then, Compass Box came along and shook things up.

After serving as marketing director at Johnnie Walker, American expatriate John Glaser launched Compass Box to shift conventions in the Scotch industry. Glaser sought to prove that blended Scotch whiskies — particularly blended grain Scotch whiskies — could share the premium spotlight with single malt Scotches.

Since its founding, Compass Box, which operates from a blending room in London, has garnered world renown not only for its game-changing endeavor, but also for its top-tier taste. Beyond its status as a Scotch industry innovator, here are six things to know about Compass Box.

No, Compass Box is not a distillery.

Compass Box is not a distillery and does not function as one — instead, it is a blending house that sources its grain and malt Scotch whiskies from distilleries around Scotland. For Hedonism, the flagship blend, it mainly pulls from Cameronbridge Distillery, the largest grain distillery in Scotland. For others like Orchard House, the blending house receives single malts from Glen Moray Distillery, which also supplies Label 5, one of the most popular Scotch brands of 2025. After blending, Compass Box Scotch whiskies mature in Scotland in a variety of vessels including oak barrels, sherry-seasoned butts, and hogsheads.

Compass Box released the firstcommercial blended grain Scotch whisky in 2000.

The origins of blended Scotch whiskies date back to the 19th century in Edinburgh. Blended Scotches typically combine single malt whiskies with single grain whiskies, but Glaser’s release of Hedonism introduced the first blended grain whisky to markets. Since then, Compass Box has released several versions of Hedonism. Many iterations of the blend include just three single grain whiskies, though some releases feature up to seven. Compass Box decided to make Hedonism a limited-edition, annual release in 2024 as it couldn’t source enough high-quality single grain whisky to meet the growing demand for the blend, the website says.

The blending house coined the word ‘whiskymaker.’

Compass Box is said to have invented the word “whiskymaker.” While no official documentation exists, and though other uses of the portmanteau exist, Compass Box claims to have coined it. The choice to refer to themselves as whiskymakers was purposeful because, according to the brand’s website, the word has a connotation of deliberate craftsmanship that “blender” lacks.

The current creative director of whiskymaking is the first female to hold the role.

Compass Box has seen three creative directors of whiskymaking — the brand’s counterpart to a Master Distiller — since its inception. As the founder, Glaser was the first whiskymaking director, succeeded by James Saxon. After Saxon stepped down in August, Angela D’Orazio was appointed to the role, becoming the first woman to helm Compass Box’s blending operations.D’Orazio’s career has been full of innovations in whiskey — at Mackmyra, she played around with alternative oaks to develop Sweden’s first smoky whiskey and experimented with the intersection of technology and whiskey.

Although the brand’s bread-and-butter is blended grain Scotch whiskies, its product line also includes malt-only blends.

A variety of blends have joined the Compass Box product line in the brand’s 25 year history. Orchard House and The Peat Monster are two of the brand’s malt-only blends. Despite its initial success with blended grain whiskies, industry folk view these malt-exclusive options as some of the best “bang for your buck” Scotches.

The 2025 release of its flagship product is the first to include a single malt whisky in its blend.

For 24 years, only single grain and blended whiskies comprised the Hedonism blend, according to the brand’s fact sheets. But for the first time, the 2025 Hedonism release includes a single malt whisky. Just 10 percent of the blend is a malt whisky from the Girvan Distillery, and the rest is comprised of three single grain whiskies from Cameronbridge and two earlier Compass Box blends vatted in 2022 and 2023.

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