The mere fact that you're reading these page indicates that you're a fellow malt-lover, so I guess you probably already own the 'Malt Whisky Companion' (ISBN 0-7513-0708-4) by Michael "not the pop-singer" Jackson. If not, and you are in the least interested in single malts, you should run to the nearest bookshop and buy it.
New distilleries and labels are born every year, for example the Arran distillery who's product is rather aggressively marketed by John Devereaux Ltd. from London. Sometimes a distillery produces whisky under labels with a different name. The Loch Lomond distillery, for example, produces the "Inchmurrin" and "Old Rhosdu" whiskies.
Please note that some malts on the list are no longer available, some have changed considerably and a few new malts have been introduced since 1999. Especially with single barrel whiskies like a 15 years old Balvenie, the bottle purchased today might be quite different from a 15 yrs. old enjoyed two years ago.
Scotland is usually divided into four
main malt regions (Highlands, Lowlands, Campbeltown and Islay), but Michael Jackson division of Scotland is somewhat more rigorous. The Speyside-area in the Highlands for example, is divided further into the districts Fiddich,
Dufftown, Bogie, Deveron, Lossie, Findhorn, etc. |
The result of my troubles was a huge list
(over 100 Kb) that might come in handy in your discovery of more of those wonderful single malt scotch whiskies. You can use that nifty FIND button on your web-browser to search 'the list'
for a certain single malt you like, and you'll have an instant display of all the other available malts from that part of Scotland.
Cool, eh?
S oon after I started drinking single malts, I discovered that whiskies from different parts of Scotland all have their own unique characteristics and style. Over 100 distilleries are scattered around the four main whisky-areas; Highlands, Lowlands, Islay and Campbeltown. I found out that, if I liked a certain whisky (for example The Macallan from the Speyside district), I often also liked other whiskies from that part of Scotland. So I took the alphabetically listed malts from the 1994 edition of the "Malt Whisky Companion" by Michael Jackson and started typing and sorting...
But this part of my site is much more than just a list of Michael
Jackson's ratings.
I've taken the ratings of over 400 single malts, and sorted them geographically.
Why did I go through so much trouble?
Well, let me tell you all about it.
It'll set you back no more than the price of your average middle class blend and it's a genuine treasure-trove of information about single malt whisky, covering over 800 single malts. Michael Jackson's 1-100 whisky ratings have helped me a lot in my ongoing search for the perfect single malt.
Michael Jackson & his companion |
Next to the "official" versions of a specific single malt whisky, offered often (but not always) by the distillery that is mentioned on the label, there may exist versions by so-called "independent bottlers".
I've tasted some rather good independent bottlings of Lagavulin and Highland Park, marketed in Holland under the "Vintage" and "Ultimate" label.
In the list,
I've included the versions by independent bottlers like Cadenhead, the Scotch Malt Whisky Society and Gordon & MacPhail. The official versions of a single malt listed on the next page are the ones without a specific bottler mentioned
between brackets.
W
ell - that should take care of the introduction;
Click here for Michael Jackson's list.
