http://theoceanofintemperance.blogspot.com/2009/06/young-whiskey-tip-of-tongue-taking-trip.html

For those of you who have commented on the whole “ratings” issue here (due to topic drift), please copy and paste your thoughts on the new posting that addresses this issue specifically. Thanks.

I do like scores, but it took me a LONG time and a lot of effort to get onto it. I would not score a nutty Irish pure pot on exactly the same characteristices as a Scotch blend but I would use the same scale. You will never find delicious old corn whisky notes in a Scotch single malt, but they are one of the best features of old Scotch grain whisky and increase the score.

Similarly, the youthful exhuberance of some young whiskies is lost in old age, but replaced by complexities and syntheses that in a ‘contemplating whisky’, I like better. I can see how a young whisky could score highly based on certain traits that would be lost in ageing, but overall, I think most whiskies improve with age and I am puzzled, as you seem to be John, with a young whisky that scores 90 points? I mean what’s left if it has already peaked?

Davin

- I believe a scoring system should work for just any drink, not only whisky, especially when you’re supposedly tasting blind! That means that I’d probably score gasoline or stale Red Bull 0/100, whilst my favourite malt so far scores 98/100. That’s why scores for SMSW usually range from 65 to 95 and very rarely go under 50. Thank god!

- Indeed, tasting notes are obligatory. In no way a score plus just a three words drivel should be published. A score is only a way to sum up a complete experience. To the reader, it only makes sense if you know the taster and his tastes (whom should you believe when you’d like to know how good the new BMW is? Michael Schumacher? A NYC cab driver? BMW’s test drivers? A car journalist? Your neighbour? A car blogger? A car dealer? A whisky blogger? BMW’s PR department?… Err…)

- What is really blind tasting? There are various degrees of ‘blindness’. If, say Duncan Taylor send me three new samples from three different casks of 1972 Caperdonich and I pour them into three glasses, ask someone to number and ‘shuffle’ them in front of me, and then try all three, is it really blind? Or at least as blind as one whisky taken randomly out of hundreds and tasted in a black or blue ISO glass?

- As for young whiskies, I have no opinions as for them being a category or not since I’m not taking categories into account (again, one single scale for all drinks and even cigars, tea, why not restaurants, CDs… When we were teenagers we were even scoring girls, weren’t we! But I think only matters in which one has a reasonable experience should be published…)

- Yet, I believe there are two kinds of young whiskies: young whiskies that taste immature and young whiskies that already taste mature because high-quality casks have been used and/or because they were matured in ‘fast places’ (such as Amrut’s in India indeed, or some Americans and so on). What bothers me most is when immature whiskies are sold to us for big bucks because they’re peaty (some punters would now buy anything peaty – heavy peat masks any flaws anyway) and/or because they’re full of new oak (heavy vanilla, ginger and coconut – once again, a good way of masking flaws and immaturity.)

- In a nutshell, I’m all for trying very young whiskies coming from new distilleries (Kilchoman springs to mind) or as examples of works in progress (Samaroli had some nice series called ‘Ageing Monography’) or because they were filled in outstanding casks (some Port Charlottes and else…) but buying an immature no-age-statement woodbomb or peatbomb bearing a fancy Gaelic name for almost the same price as a 12 years old, no thanks, you can see right through it.

I’m presuming Mr. Murray is rating his young whiskeys as a category.
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Murray says he tastes everything blind, and the scores are what they are regardless of category. A young whiskey (or a blend, or whatever) that scores 92 is deemed a point better than a 15yo malt (or whatever) that scores a 91, period. Frankly (and with all respect, John), I think scoring whisky is totally bogus, so these kinds of anomalies don’t mean much to me. I just can’t see any point to putting a numerical value to a subjective experience. Not that it can’t be done…but if you develop some objective criteria for judging, say, great paintings, and “Guernica” scores 95 and “The Night Watch” 94, does that really mean anything? All it comes down to is what you like, and, if you can articulate it, why. Either the “objective criteria” are formulated to justify your tastes, or else they fail, sooner or later, to account for something that falls outside of them. I feel no need whatsoever to make the things I enjoy compete with each other.

Murray’s giving high ratings to young whiskies. Does it wash? Which detergent should we try? If young whisky were a bonafide style would that clean up the issue? Then again, such a solution might contain hazardous elements.

2.John, you do your laundry:

Numerical ratings are explained by the need for objectivity.

Tasting without water is explained by the need of reviews to be relevant to everyone, in which case they must apply to experiences, which can be easily duplicated by anyone.

In other words, both positions are appropriate to a writer of popular whisky reviews, though not to someone who is looking to maximize their enjoyment of whisky. Your laundry is clean. However, the nonreviewer who follows your lead may end up with a bundle of dirty clothes in his closet.

3. We should not need to do Murray’s laundry for him. He should be as forthcoming as you. He should explain to us how it all comes out in the wash.

I love Rosebank. I call it my favourite lowland whisky. In such a way, I’m making Lowland whiskies a style.

Jim Murray, I think, does the same thing, but doesn’t note it in his somewhat terse tasting notes. He tastes young whiskies and seems to rate them based as a category of young whiskies. In this sense, he’s creating a style category all its own, and I think his ratings amongst young whiskies are consistent in that category.

The problem is that I don’t think he’s AWARE that he’s doing that, or, if he is, he doesn’t mention it anywhere — and that leads people who look at ratings to misunderstand the ratings of a particular whisky.

This has always been my big beef against ratings alone, and why I preferred Michael Jackson’s guides over Jim Murray’s — the more extensive flavour profiling done by Michael Jackson, and, more to the point, the more consistent flavour profiling.

Jim Murray’s tasting notes are all over the map — from random strings of meaningless (to me, anyway — I’m sure they mean something to him) words, to eloquent descriptions. But to me, that’s where the TRUE value lies.

If I don’t like leathery whisky, for instance (I’m not personally against it), and I read that Whisky X got a 95, but skip the part where the flavour profile is listed as ‘old leather,’ I’m missing a very important part of the guide, and am liable to be incredibly disappointed.

But if JM were to consciously be aware of, and group his ratings according to, all the subcategories he creates in his head, it would make for an incredibly jumbled, but possibly more useful, guide indeed.

SO… again… to reiterate… yes, I think young whiskies are a style, but only if you choose to think of them as such.

Anyway, if ratings are in use, in my opinion there should not be any sub category ratings. It is better to just have everything rated equally, were they 1 month old scotch new make, 3 years old bourbon or 30 years old scotch single. Otherwise the reader has no idea of what to think about the ratings.

1) Age is not always associated with quality and you might have very young whiskies, which have matured very quickly as you might have old whiskies from inactive or overactive casks. What is important for me is quality and not the age.

2) Ratings: I am active on several forums and what annoys me nowadays is that many whisky enthusiasts are too focused on the rating alone. I think that it is important to educate the whisky enthusiasts to develop their own opinion and to read the tasting notes with ratings with more critical eyes.

I have no wishes to rate by style and this would be most confusing for the whisky enthusiast.
As soon as you start to make style, where would you stop?
For example:
you might classify the style young as whiskies aged between 3 and 7 years.
1) If you do so, how do you deal with Indian whiskies (e.g., Amrut) which matures very quickly?
2) If you liked very much a young 7 YO from distillery X and you rated it 92 in the “young style”, how do you deal with the 8 YO version of the same product as part of the “normal style”? Since the product is better than average in this category, you would only rate it 82. Would it be not very confusing?

If you start with a “young style”, should you not then create an “old style”? Make a distinction between bourbon, grain, rye and blended whisky? What about sherry and bourbon matured whiskies? What about “non-peated, lightly peated and heavily peated”? where do you stop then?

Rating a whisky is a subjective perception, and personally, I always try to make my ratings compared to some “internal standards”. But if you publish ratings, either be consistent trough all the range of whiskies or explain how you do it.

my 2cents thoughts.