I love the Whisky Bible. I have several editions and use them extensively when tasting and shopping for drams. I find Murray to be funny, contemplative and extremely descriptive in his assessments. He’s fanatical about whisky and a great champion of the industry in general. Yes, he’s got an ego and yes he an be a bit overbearing, but his passion and love for the industry shines through. I will continue to use the Whisky Bible as a guide and as an entertaining read!

Josh

Gary

Right on BJ. People often do this and it’s too bad.

Finally, I would encourage John to collect his rankings and tasting notes that are produced in the Malt Advocate and do his own book because I greatly respect his opinion and those of his writers (even if I do not agree with them all the time either) – I also like the Scottish Field rankings because, as David Broom noted about how he tastes and ranks whisky, they are blind and they include a range of highly reputable whisky experts.

And should we all agree with each other? I think not. I have a great respect for ALL the men and women in the industry and having met many of them, I have learned so much from each and every one of them even though I am not always in agreement with all that is said or written. I find it fun and energizing to read on the subject ( e. g., Jim’s writings ) from someone who has so much knowledge on the subject.

As we all know, people in the Scotch Whisky league are connoisseurs who are passionate about the subject and wanting to convey and instill that same passion within the rest of us. Given that, and to sketch out briefly from my readings on the subject over many years, and knowing that the experts all have unfathomnable knowledge, I find MacLean, The Historian; Jackson, The Teacher; Broom; The Traveller; McIvor; The Salesman; Paterson, The Ambassador; and, Murray, The Chemist, and the list goes on and on. Let us all remember that each something to contribute to the subject from the novice to the connoisseur. We can all learn from each other.

Jim’s epic tasting at the ’07 Whiskies of the World in San Francisco was a genuine highlight of my whisky-tasting “career”. It’s a shame he and the magazine conference organizers can’t get along to get him to appear at more such events.

And like all good critics, once you have a handle on how your tastes match to his, you can use his reviews as buying guides even if you don’t agree with them.

The conflicts of interest (Knappogue Castle, Ardbeg/Glenmorangie, Jameson, others?) are troubling. Lack of clear disclosure there shows poor judgment.

But as the books themselves, what else is there that attempts anything remotely as comprehensive? The Michael Jackson guide is great, but sorely incomplete and out of date. I think Murray’s book is a must-buy for the interested whisky lover.

Not sure about that one, Sam. I don’t think so.

One thing that would be nice would be to have publications such as the Whisky Bible be more or less living documents, in the sense that a the writer understands that a given expression of a certain whisky from this year will not be identical to that of last year. The book’s subject need to be continually re-tasted and the ratings updated – a formidable task, but one I’m sure any whisky writer worth his nosing glass would be up to.

My whiskey bookshelf is primarily filled with Murray, Michael Jackson, and the engaging and informative Charles MacLean. Of that formidable lineup, it seems to me that Murray is unique in that he pulls no punches. If he thinks a whisky tastes like something dumped from a washing machine into which sewage has backed up, he’ll say it. He panned Pappy 20 ten years ago, and he ripped into Littlemill (“Perfect for the person in your life you loathe”) the year before that. I may not always agree with his assessments – frequently I don’t – but I admire him for speaking his mind.

I must say, it took Johannes and the Malt Maniacs about two years to convince me to start scoring whisky and I used all the arguments I have read here and elsewhere to say why you can’t score whiskies. But once I put my mind to it, I discovered scoring was much less subjective and random than I had imagined and I could pretty much repeat my scores, blind, even years later. My objections it turns out, were just naiive assumptions.

One reason I did not trust scoring is that I could not consistently get the same scores as Michael Jackson. My Macallan scores were always 5 or 6 points less than his. Once I realised this, though I began to find his scores very useful because I knew how to translate them into what I would like most among untasted malts I could purchase, especially when traveling. So I went from baffled disbeliever to prosyletising apostle.

The same holds for Jim Murray and his Bible. Once you learn how to read Jim Murray’s scores they are just as useful as a guide as Jackson’s were or yours in Malt Advocate are. I’ll repeat that – as a GUIDE. I’d suggest people taste a few whiskies and compare their impression to those in the Bible. Learn what turns Murray on and what doesn’t then rather than follow it as scripture, interpret it to their own tastes. It’s not going to match perfectly, but just like Jackson’s scores, once you know how to interpret them Murray’s will be a whole lot more useful than nothing at all (and they fit in your pocket).

You know Murray has told us he does not always score whiskies perfectly. I remember some years ago, just about the time he stopped appearing in Whisky Magazine he published an article saying he had just spent something like 3 months unable to distinguish one whisky from another and he thought his career was over. (I am telling you this from memory so the details may be different, but the gist is that his sense of smell and taste had changed radically.) I’d suggest if people want a guide to help them make a decision between one bottle or another the Whisky Bible is as good as any other. If however they are looking for someone to hold their hand and direct them to the best whisky in the world for their own personal palate, then they are going to be disappointed. If, on the other hand they are just looking for scores to disagree with, well, just about any source is as good as another.