Welcome to 2017!

Whiskyanalysis.com has been up and running for about 18 months now, and just like last year, I thought it would be a good time to take stock of where we are.

The top-line finding is that the Meta-Critic Database has grown to over 1000 whiskies! As always, that encompasses a wide range of Scottish, Irish, American, Canadian and other International malts and blends.

I’ve continued to add new reviewers, so those 1000 whiskies represent over 13,000 individual whisky reviews that I have tracked and manually curated. 😓

The mean Meta-Critic score for all whiskies in the database is currently 8.54, with a mean standard deviation of 0.39. But of course, the range for different classes can vary, depending on reviewer norms.  To help you in figuring out what is a “typical” average and standard deviation score, here is how it break downs for the four main classes that I use to group whiskies:

Bourbon-like: mean average 8.57, mean standard deviation 0.37
Rye-like: mean average 8.47, mean standard deviation 0.46
Scotch-like blends: mean average 8.21, mean standard deviation 0.40
Single Malt-like: mean average 8.54, mean standard deviation 0.39

So when comparing the scores for any given whisky in each of those categories, you can use the numbers above to help calibrate yourself.

I have been adding my own whisky reviews at the rate of about one per week. I expect to keep that up for the conceivable future, as I have a good stockpile of samples to work my way through. Hopefully you will find these individual reviews a good one-stop location for background, tasting notes, relevant Meta-Critic comparisons, and links to further reviews.

And finally, my server stats show we have hit another 1000 milestone – WhiskyAnalysis.com is now averaging over 1000 visitors a day.  That’s about a 3.5-fold increase in traffic since this time last year. Thanks for all the comments, keep ’em coming!

Slainte,
Eric