• I am more than aware about the typographical errors that have crept in recently. As a journalist there is no margin for mistakes and I can only put them down to me adding the editorship of Scotland Magazine to my mantel. We are already improving things – I hope this will not be an issue for readers within a few editions.
• The different taster’s opinions is one of the key points of the tastings – to provide different opinions on the same whiskies. As you know this is often more of an art than a science, and we think the alternative views are essential. For clarity, the tastings are the best read section of the magazine. In our most recent readership survey, for which results only came in a fortnight ago, we know that Tastings are the best read part of the magazine followed by the Distillery Focus, with 90.3 per cent and 85.6 per cent reading these sections ‘Always’ as their first reference.
• You refer to Diageo’s advertising in the magazine – as you no doubt know Diageo do not run many display advertisements in the UK any more, and certainly haven’t with us for some years, and therefore any decision about the Distiller’s Edition coverage in the magazine was entirely and only an editorial one. I decided not to score the tastings, not out of any deference to Diageo, but because this is not what these tastings are about. I wanted to look at the impact the further maturation made on the spirit. It was a simple exercise in comparison. You may see further tastings like this later in the year, or ‘star’ scored tastings, and we will use the same editorial analysis with every whisky producer – and as a reminder, all our tastings are always conducted blind.
• Respondents to our survey were asked what other areas they would like to see covered in the magazine. Be the first to know that in response to their suggestions you will be seeing more on collecting (the Whisky Magazine Index starts in the next issue), more on where to visit in the world of whisky, more on people in the industry and genuine consumers, more competitions, more about bars and hotels…You may not know Whisky Magazine circulation continues to grow (we have Japanese, Chinese, French and Spanish language editions), our readership survey reflects the strong engagement of our readers and we have a clear plan of future content that will continue to provide interest to readers both in the UK and worldwide. If you want to add to that bank of ideas the best thing is to email me directly and I can throw them into the editorial melting pot.

Cheers,

Rob

I for one would enjoy and be interested in a lengthy article on yeast strains. Provided it was well researched and well written, by someone who either knows the stuff him- or herself, or who’s had unlimited access to a few guys or dolls that do. This was not in Whisky Mag…

/ Pär

With exception to some bottles I think that 2010 will see the peak of this crazy price rally, the end will come soon. ALL bubbles burst and this one looks ripe for doing so.

Why do I say this, simple! The distillers have cotton on to the speculators and hype and have squeezed every last penny of profit possible, they will milk the ‘special releases’ and ‘new bottles’ till the price is not only out of reach of the punters but also that of the speculators / collectors.

At some point some of these special releases and even some standard bottles will remain on the shelf and the tide will turn this will mark the end of the boom.

This is just my opinion but I will say it again..

All bubbles burst, think dot.com, banks, housing, whisky.

I think it would be a real shame if Diageo were to buy Moet Hennesy. Look at the brands they own now. All limited to 2 or 3 bottlings. Would this be the end of the likes of Supernova or Signet? I really hope not.

As for Whisky Magazine, I really struggle with some of the topics they choose to write about. Is it really necessary to write a long article on yeast strains? I hope it improves in 2010. I think in terms of the amount of whiskies they taste, I would be sad for them to go, because apart from Jim Murray, there is not really anywhere else to get so many reviews. The magazine I have been enjoying recently is unfiltered by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. If only they would just print more of them!

Thanks for the mention Tim. It makes Lucas and I feel special :D

Hope you have a great 2010. Speak soon.

Chris

Funny a bit of snow stops London in its tracks – and funny also, that Gothenburg is sometimes referred to – for some reason – as “Little London” and that our trams tend to stop rather dead in their tracks as well, if there is more than 10 crs of snow at once…

I couldn’t agree more about the decline of Whisky Mag. It has been obvious for years now and I have not re-subscribed when the thing stopped arriving last year. And that is coming from one of the nerds you class yourself as, i.e. one wanting to know more, all the time. I even tried, three or four years ago, to give them the tip of actually writing something that was a bit deeper and had an interest to those slightly more in the know. Like the good marketing folks they all seem to be, they said it was a great idea and that they were working on just that. Not a job well done, if you were, guys.

John Hansell at the Malt Advocate team is doing a far better job and are also oozing of real interest for the product. Well done, John! However, I will offer a little thought there as well and that is that besides the rather “Amateur American” style of it (which can be a little confusing and annoying at times), there is far too much nonsense in there as well. Why cocktails? Why a few writers that just blurb words with little meaning? The sun has its spots as well and still shines brightly, but what if…?

Diageo have loads of good reasons to have MH for breakfast. And I do think that with the Diageo focus on blends and their array of iconic BUT SMALLER malt whiskies, they can always find a good trade off, which means say Dufftown will be traded for Glenmorangie and perhaps something like a co-ownership of Caol Ila to release a bit of pressure on the Islay market segment (they would hardly want Caol Ila to go away entirely, as it produces a much wanted blending fodder as well as a very reliable malt – but Ardbeg is far sexier in that respect).

Bit long. But the subjects were very inspiring. Good work, Tim. Misplace your snow gear.

The ongoing trend of the “limited bottles”: Ardbeg Supernova, the Ardbeg range path to maturity, Bowmore Tempest, Springbank vintages, etc.
Popular distilleries are certain their stocks will be sold out far more sooner than it used to be… A smart marketing trick? And the guys of whiskyauction must be laughing too…
And then you have the new thing of the batches: look at the prices of Laphroaig’s first batch of the cask strenght at auctions.
I think this will continue: producing new ranges for the collector society. The only question I have is where does it stop? Hopefully not every distillery will copy the Bruichladdich idea ;-).

Nevertheless, I have to say: a lot of those limited bottles from 2009 (I’m not talking about the Laddies though, because I didn’t tasted them) are really good!

greetings,
Johan, Belgium

And thanks everyone, for the kind words. We sometimes wonder whether it’s worth all the hassle and stress juggling Malt Advocate, WDJK, WhiskyFests, etc. Feedback like this keeps us going.

The gang at Whisky magazine are good people trying to do a very difficult job. We wish them all the best in the future.

Regarding the item 1, because of monopoly, this would be difficult to achive.

2-3: the companies want to make more money, so unfortunately the prices will increase further more, but I think we are closing to the threshold before the volume goes down and if the volume goes down, without reducing production capacity, we might have very good and good whisky in the years to come?

5: You meant the “Manager’s choice” instead of the distillers’ Edition?

6-10: Waiting. Hopefully, it will come before the snow melted ;-)

[5. The continued decline of Whisky magazine] – I took a year’s subscription and didn’t bother re-subscribing. In fact I could hardly make it through one issue. The tasting notes were nonsense, the articles all read like marketing fluff, and it pushed personalities like “Dave” and “Martine” and “Rob” over and above the whiskies and distilleries. Potentially interesting articles (e.g. focus on XYZ distillery) turned out to be very lightweight. Articles saying how wonderful the SWA is had me reaching for the bag. Depressing stuff indeed. Very poor signal-to-noise ratio. A special interest magazine should do much better than that, and most of the ones I’ve subscribed to do (e.g. Kitchen Garden magazine).

Interesting that you should mention the decline of Whisky Magazine and the proliferation of other sources. I recently updated my whisky resources page to reflect that fact that Ruben at WhiskyNotes has moved up right below Whiskyfun, and alongside John Hansel as a whisky review source for me. I do still like the whisky mag reviews, but primarily the older ones and/or Dave Broom reviews. I enjoy their online forum, though.

I hope the flood of whisky enthusiast hacks, such as myself, doesn’t cause too much “noise” and interfere with people finding their way to the estabished, reliable resources (like Whiskyfun, WDJK, Dr. Whisky, TWE, etc.).

I do feel a little weird about the fact that some of my posts end up “too high” on Google searches, relative to much better sources of information. However, I think that’s just a matter of us newbies using the latest and greatest blogging software, with great built-in support for crawlers.

Thanks for the great post! Looking forward to the next one…

Jeff

I agree with you wholeheartedly about the decline of Whisky Mag and the rise of John Hansell’s Malt Advocate. I find it embarassing to read Whisky Mag these days. Like you, I hope they can turn it around but there’s no easy way for them to do that; they’ve fallen too far.

I just placed a large-ish order with you so I hope the snow clears soon and you can get back to work!

Happy New Year,
Jason @ WHISKYhost

I keep getting the feeling with most articles in it that I have read it all before, and most of the stuff that I have not read before I don’t finish because it doesn’t add anything to the little I know about whisky, or isn’t entertaining.

I think the amount of age statements on whisky will go in the opposite direction of the price of said bottles. More and more ‘no age stated’ whiskies are released and, while not all of them are bad, it is a trend I don’t really enjoy.

With Diageo being rather smart (again) and releasing the incredibly expensive but highly sought after Manager’s Choice bottles the road has been made clear for more expensive, but younger, whiskies.

O, and as in past years, more and more great bottles of whisky are being released by independents. Love that, since they usually are a bit cheaper compared on age/price.

Cheers!

Sjoerd