You’re right, I should have said “typically”. My understanding is that the malted barley for Scotch is dried with smoke that often (but not always, as you point out) comes from peat, but it’s not dried in closed kilns as it is for Irish whiskey. So while you might have more or less peat, you still have more smoke than in Irish whiskey.

There are a small number of distilleries that use peat, almost exclusively the island distilleries. The vast majority of scotch is _not_ peaty. There's at least 50 distilleries in the speyside area/category (notably not peaty), vs 10 in campbelltown and islay.

Agreed. Broadly there are three types of Whisky in Scotland:

Highland. Lowland. Island.

Varieties from the same region share characteristics, but they're distinct from each other.

I would go as far as to say that most scotch is not peated.

https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usfeatures/maltwhisky... seems to indicate that coke/oil is used these days, with peat being added if wanted for flavours.

I'm curious how historically the kilns would be fired across Scotland, if peat was more prevalent?

http://www.bairds-malt.co.uk/Bairds-Malt/Process/process mentions about using hot air.

https://www.laphroaig.com/en/whisky/our-process - Has some nice videos, including them using solely peat to kiln the malt.

Most distilleries, including the best known, don't malt and dry their own barley to begin with.