Caveats, conditions and notes

The below exists less as a blog and more as a place to clear up/caveat my rambling thoughts and opinions elsewhere:

Credit, Copyright and Citations

Across this site are a number of pieces of content that were previously published elsewhere such as the fantastic ‘Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom’, or the descriptions of Alfred Barnard provided by his family. These are republished here in their entirety with reference to the original source. No copyright infringement is intended but finding these fantastic pieces often required me following countless broken links and scouring archive.org versions of long lost websites. In these cases the content has been republished here to preserve the asset and make it more easily accessible, I will take it down upon request.

When researching for the podcast, distillery profiles, caramel lists and other content I endeavour to give credit to originating sites and sources. Unfortunately as the research is carried out over numerous devices, on buses or even on occasion in front of the TV and data validation and merging/validating is often quite script heavy this is not always possible. If you feel you’ve not been properly cited for some important titbit please reach out and let me know.

Image credit

All imagery used on this site is either creative commons, taken by myself or use was authorised by the source. No other imagery is used, if somehow an image taken by yourself has been mis-attributed, or you wish Whiskipedia to stop using one of your images please reach out via our contact form.

Reviews

My ten system translates as such:

• 1 - 2: I wouldn’t drink that swill again
• 3 - 4: Solid enough but I wouldn’t recommend it - overpriced, has a funky note etc.
• 5: Nice enough
• 6: I’ll have another please
• 7: Delicious
• 8: Oh wow that’s getting added to my collection
• 9: Where have you been all my life
• 10: Don’t get between me and this bottle if you place value on your remaining days

I could write lengthily on the various systems in play, but that’s been done more thoroughly than I’d care to by the Old Man of Huy. Instead I’ll simply note that:

• If you use 1-5 but allow halves then your scoring system a mis-labbelled one to ten scale
• If you use a % based system then your nose/palette is far more refined than my own. So congratulations, by the way, what is the difference between a 57% and a 58% anyway?
• If you don’t factor price into the review of a whisky then I personally think you’re nuts. Other opinions are available, but this is one is mine.

Regional sub-divisions

The sub-regions/classification system on this site follow the Michael Jackson system, if for no other reasons than he got there first and he’s far harder to argue the point with. If you look up Aberfeldy, Invar Ronde (In his Malt Whisky Yearbook) calls it a southern Highland distillery, Dave Brooms calls it a central Highland (Whisky Atlas) and Michael Jackson calls it an eastern Highlands distillery (Complete Guide to Single Malt Scotch). Unless the distillery themselves reaches out (yes I would love a cask sample) I’m going with Mike on this one.

Islands Regions and legal definition

While I have some misgivings about some decisions taken by the SWA (Scotch Whisky Association) they are for all intents and purposes the authorities on the matter, and neither they, nor the current set of Scotch Whisky regulations (as of 2009) recognise the Islands as a region or locality. The protected regions are ‘Highland’, ‘Lowland’ and ‘Speyside’. “Campbeltown” and “Islay” are protected localities, though for simplicity and uniformity on site, these will be treated as producing regions.

Beyond legislation, my honest opinion is that regional conversations are of limited utility in this day and age unless you’re planning a distillery tour, and even then maps are far more appropriate. Regional classifications may help in the early days of discovery but mostly they just complicate the conversation, not all Islay whiskies are peated, not all Lowland drams are light and delicate. If anyone can summarise the Speyside style succinctly without needing 10+ exceptions I’ll buy them a drink. Regardless some folk like them so where provided these follow the Michael Jackson line.

Mothballed, Closed & Lost Distilleries

I appreciate there’s a degree of complexity on this point but for simplicity distilleries are listed as

• Pending - planned/being built but not yet operational
• Active - making whisky
• Closed - mothballed but the distillery could theoretically be revived
• Lost - the site has been demolished/converted. We will not see it’s like again

You can find more information on the distinction between current and historic distilleries here. I do my best to keep this up to date but I am a one man show so please drop me a message if you notice anything that needs corrected, also and I know I’m going to regret saying this but if you want to pull something together for me I am happy to take contributions so long as these are relevant, non-transactional/link stuffed gibberish you bought on fiverr!