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.
Ardbeg. What else is there to say? Folks seem to love it or hate it. For those of us who fall into the "love" category, we pulled a handful of distillery bottlings from our personal stashes and stuck them in a meeting. But since they were somewhat random choices, we were in a quandary as to how to structure the tasting.
Solution? Pass the buck! Tim Puett, the mastermind behind The Ardbeg Project -- and newest member of the Malt Maniacs -- came into L.A. to join the fun. And he courteously brought a sampling of his own collection to quaff as well! (Thanks Tim, HLH!) Not that we came up with any better way to structure the meeting because of this, but Tim's being there added enough legitimacy that we felt we did justice to this grand distillery.
The lineup was as follows, ratings/notes will appear as members enter them:
LAWS is now on summer hiatus, the next tasting meeting will be in September.
(Members: For those who weren't here, we did the "lotto" drawing for the Reserves Spring Cleaning bottles, a list of who got what will be on the Message Board. Also note that when we regroup in September I expect the Duke to come up with some sort of make-up activity that truly provides "suspense and excitement," as this one was more like a LAWS near-death-experience.)
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.
This is awesome. Just excellent. Whereas some people might see finishing a rye in a dessert wine barrel as gimmicky -- or even "cheating" -- I don't care. This is genius. A big, bold rye with all the delicious sp... 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:
The latest whiskey newly-reviewed by a member who gives it a personal rating of A- or higher.
Average rating of at least A-.
Currently obtainable from retail stores in the United States by the average, interested, Google-capable person.
Generally not over $300.
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, tiebreaker goes to the member with the most notes overall.
