Frequent visitors may have noticed that this list of liquid links has been trimmed quite a bit lately.
When I started out in 1995 I had the idea of building
the biggest whisky link library in the world
- but
even in the 1990's I felt there was some chaff amongst the grain. Over the years I've grown a bit more
selective and sometimes excellent sites just wither away after a few years. On this page I'll try to offer a
'digest' (or rather, a pre-digest
of sorts) of the thousands of whisky websites around the world. Some
websites in some categories like 'shops & bars' are commercial by definition, but I've removed the many
(overt & covert) commercial sites from the other categories. If a website hasn't been updated in over a
year I usually remove the link as well. I've stopped maintaining a collection of links to whisky events here,
but malt maniac Konstantin Grigoriadis now publishes fresh data on the Malt Maniacs frontpage regularly.
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Malt Maniacs |
Hehehe ;-) Obviously, the sub-site of our international whisky freaks collective is a favourite. |
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Ah..., yes, well...., you see.... Up until a few years ago this used to be the biggest section of the Liquid Links page.
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Aberlour |
Attractive design, but the site is a major disaster if you don't like 'cookies'. |
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Adelphi |
A nice, tightly designed website with just the bare essentials. |
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France - La Maison du Whisky |
On-line shop with an excellent collection. It helps if you understand some French, though. |
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Dr. Whisky |
A whisky blog by Sam Simmons with fairly regular reports and tasting notes - but no scores, alas. |
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PLOWED Society |
USA - An American collective. Have a virtual malt-chat on the 'comments' page! |
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The Darwin Awards |
Honouring those who improve our gene pool - by removing themselves from it... |
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This website wouldn't be complete without an overview of my favourite links.
These 'Liquid Links' will give you access to a virtual overload of information and
opinions about single malt
whisky. For your browsing convenience, I've divided
the links on this page into a few different categories. Allow me to demonstrate;
My personal favourits offer so much fresh and independent information about
whisky that I rarely feel the need to check the 'official channels' - although most
of the Scotch whisky distilleries and independent bottlers have their very own
official website these days. More and more shops & bars have useful websites
too where you can check the menu - or even order your bottles directly online.
One could argue that providing impartial opinions and/or debate about their
products isn't always in the best interest of distilleries, bottlers, shops or bars.
That's different for whisky publications & whisky societies - at least it should be.
Last but not least, I've added a few solid links that have nothing to do with malts.
These links have been last reviewed on 11/01/2010 - recent additions and refreshed pages are printed boldly.
The liquid links below
will take you to websites & blogs on the world wide web, but there are other ways to stay informed.
In the past there were mailing lists like Malts-L and usenet groups like alt.drinks.scotch-whisky - but in this modern day and age it's all about communities. Malt Maniacs also started out as a simple on-line community in 1997, but for a decade e-mail and our website were the main means of communication. However, now there's Malt Maniacs & Friends on facebook. Over the years I've seen a few forums and communities being taken over by 'commercial' interests. We felt we should try to offer at least one purely independent and non-commercial alternative on-line. And even with MM&F it doesn't hurt to
compare various sources before deciding to invest your hard-earned cash in a bottle - or a cask, or a book, or a trip, or a bagpipe, or a kilt, etcetera.
Obviously, it's a
pretty good idea to join the Mixed Messages Mailinglist as well.
For one thing, noteworthy news about the whisky world and these websites magically drops into your mailbox all by itself.
But there's more; For a decade I've been keeping track of my alcoholic adventures via my Liquid Log, but after I wrote my 300th log entry in 2006 - actually seven HTML pages altogether - some log entries are sent 'exclusively' to members of the mailinglist.
