Scoring System
When I decided to start Whiskyrific, I believed that tasting notes and descriptors were sufficient to convey my interpretation of a whisky’s quality (and how much I liked it).
I intentionally stayed away from a scoring system because of the difficulties of scoring – besides, common methods have their flaws eg. why 85 and not 86 points, yet a 5 star method seemed too narrow a range. Also I was not sure I could score accurately anyway.
But going back to previous tasting notes, I now see that some of my enthusiasm for particular whiskies is somewhat lost in the maze of words. One might find many ‘off’ sounding scents in a whisky – rubber, matches, chalk, damp, manure anyone? – and yet it could be a nice natural rubber instead of a burning sulfurous vulcanized rubber for example, or a warm farmyard scent instead of well, cat shit… Or it might be the case where these weird scents, taken together as a whole, does form a rather excellent and delicious whole.
So I introduce Whiskyrific‘s sliding scale of delectability:
Pretty self-explanatory I think, here the red pointer indicates where between ‘Nice’ and ‘Excellent’ I think a whisky belongs. No numbers here and by nature such a scale is not exact. Also the general caveats apply:
This scale represents my subjective view on how good I believe a whisky is. One man’s meat is another man’s poison, and something I really like, you may turn out not to like at all, and vice versa.
Position on the scale is determined only by how good I believe the whisky is, and does not take into account other non taste specific factors, like cost, or rarity.
If it seems that my pointer is more often on the ‘Excellent’ end, this is because I too am a consumer, and more often than not make purchasing decisions based on how well it was received by crowd wisdom – generally this means if most people find it good, there’s a good chance that so will I. Exceptions apply.
So I will now begin reviewing past posts and editing them to include the Whiskyrific scale, a tasty job I do not regret one drop.
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- Millburn 36 yo 1969 / 2005 Douglas Laing #DL2152 50% vs Glenburgie 40 yo 1963 / 2003 Signatory #4751 56.4%
- Ben Nevis 23 yo 1996 / 2019 Single Malts of Scotland for the Nectar #536 51.3% vs A Speyside Distillery 32 yo 1989 / 2022 Thompson Bros 51.4%
- Brora 22 yo 1972 / 1995 Rare Malts 61.1% vs Brora 22 yo 1972 / 1995 Rare Malts 58.7%
- Talimburg 19 yo 1986 / 2005 The Whisky Fair #1485 45.9% vs Talisker 20 yo 1981 / 2002 62%
- Caol Ila 12 yo Bulloch Lade for Zenith 43% vs Caol Ila 30 yo 1979 / 2010 Berry Bros #4604/5 55.6%
- Clynelish 29 yo 1965 Whyte & Whyte 52.1%
- Brora 21 yo 1982 / 2003 Signatory #416 58.4% vs Clynelish 27 yo 1982 / 2009 Synch Eli Daily Dram 46%
- Dornoch 5 yo 2017 / 2023 #46 ‘Jasper Broers’ 57.9% vs Shizuoka ‘private cask’ 2017 / 2022 #2017-108 61%
- Clynelish 26 yo 1993 / 2020 Carn Mor #11215 52.7% vs Bowmore 17 yo 2004 /2021 SMWS 3.327 ‘Siren’s Song’ 57.1%
- Talisker 25 yo ‘Bottle TA25 3987’ 45.8% ~ bottle code L0296CM004 bottled 2020 vs Ledaig 11 yo 2008 / 2019 The Swan Song & 1BRD #700104 58.7%
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