Best in Blog #59: Dr. Whisky and the Rotten Tomatoes of Single Malts
It sounds like a bad, whisky related knock-off of a Harry Potter book, but trust me, if there is one thing for you to read this week, it’s Dr. Whisky’s controversial post about uniting the whisky blogosphere behind a collaborative ratings system.
Tasting Notes From Bloggers We Trust:
- John Hansell speaks highly of the new Port Ellen 9th Release from Diageo.
- Whisky for Everyone calls Hazelburn CV “the first great whisky of 2010,” and the Spingbank CV, which went over less well. The two will soon be available as 20cL bottles in a three pack with the Longrow CV.
- Cask Strength takes a turn doing a head to head matchup of the peated and sherried version of Penderyn, the first Welsh whisky in a century.
- Masters of Malt present Glengoyne Glenguin 16 – a highland finished in Australian Shiraz casks.
- Whisky Fun tastes three official Springbanks, and four expressions from the now-silent St. Magdalene’s distillery.
- WhiskyHOST tastes SMWS 43.15 (aka Port Ellen 26 yo).
- Whisky Notes tastes a Tyrconnell 16 (Irish whiskey).
- Finally, Whisky Intelligence has notes on an Inverarity 8 year old vatted malt, and Big Peat (NAS) from Douglas Laing.
Whisk(e)y News on the Web:
- Speaking of ratings systems, Scotch Hobbyist puts all of his online in a Google Doc and explains what it all means.
- The Whisky Exchange Blog has interesting predictions about the future of the industry for 2010.
- Dave Pickerell, the former Master Distiller at Maker’s Mark, is guest blogging at John Hansell’s blog about American microdistilling and the rising popularity of rye whiskey.
- John Hansell himself wants to know how he can improve his blog.
- Who do you think are the leaders in the whisky industry?
- Whisk(e)y Apostle has some information on new US whisky releases.
- WhiskyHOST is conducting Twitter interviews with scotch distilleries.
–Whisky Party
Related posts:
A whisky “rotten tomatoes” website would be a great resource, since the most helpful information about a single whisky is usually an aggregate of opinions from a diverse variety of sources. That is the beauty of this whisky blogosphere that has recently exploded– there are multiple opinions about almost every bottle out there.
But that should be a critical aspect of some new database: access to multiple opinions on flavour profiles. Let’s face it: if you drink whisky, most whiskies are good whiskies. It’s more about the basic flavour/aroma profile and the body-type than whether a whisky gets an overall 87 or 92 rating.
And when multiple reviews of the same bottle, using varying approaches, detect similar core elements, then something has really been said about that whisky, and the reader benefits greatly.