What's the best single malt scotch? That's really up to you and your tastes alone. But if you want to see what we think, we've tried a whole lot of them.
Whether you know what makes a bourbon a bourbon, or if you're just starting out, we've got ratings and tasting notes on stuff from Kentucky to California.
This past meeting featured a blind tasting of 8 vatted malts. Well, now we're all supposed to call them "Blended Malts" according to the SWA. Whatever. Is it whisky? Good! Let's drink some.
The guys were challenged to match up each whiskey with a description of its component malts. Our new, not-quite-yet-a-member Sku showed us all up and won this difficult competition with an impressive 6 out of 8 correct. He takes home bragging rights and mild hangover.
Favorites of the night were the economical (and of course not-USA-available) Big Peat, and the semi-collectable Murray McDavid Islay Trilogy.
The vatted blended malts tasted are listed below, click for the component malts in each one. Buy your own bottles, and play along at home!
We are a private club, but a public resource. If it's single malt scotch, bourbon, Irish, or any whiskey (or whisky) we can get our hands on, we'll drink it. We've got tasting notes, ratings, and more. Our database can point you to whiskies by type, price, age, vintage, bottler -- and by what we think is the best... or worst! More about how we started, who we are, and why we do this...
Anytime a member enters new notes/rating on a whisky, that whisky appears on the home page (you're there). So, you'll see new whiskies mixed with old ones, since one minute we may be reviewing a brand-new release, and the next minute a member may finally be getting around to posting their notes on Jack Daniels.
Andy: Nose has red hots and fruitcake. Strong and sharp. The palate is Christmas! Evergreen (noble fir) and christmas spice all lingering over this smoky base that reminds me of a fireplace whose flames just died out. Stunning... More
Want to download our entire database of whiskies and ratings? You can do that. Want all of one member's detailed tasting notes? You can get that too. All downloads are in Excel (.xls) format for easy sortability.
The Latest Must-Try Whiskey is automatically selected by meeting all these criteria:
It is the latest whiskey newly-reviewed by a member who gives it a personal rating of A- or higher.
It has an average rating of at least A-.
It is currently obtainable from retail stores in the United States by the average, interested, Google-capable person.
It is not outrageously priced, generally not over $300.
It is a recently released bottling, at least somewhat.
The notes displayed in the must-try area are always those from the member giving the highest rating to that particular whiskey, with the tiebreaker going to the member with the most notes overall.
