When I announced the system I would use to rate whiskies many people suggested to do things differently. Especially regarding the price/quality comparison in my total of points for a whisky. Of course, I didn’t want to listen and had to find out the hard way that it doesn’t really make any sense. In my current system, the price compared to the quality of the whisky has a too large impact on the final rating and an expensive whisky cannot get up to 5 stars.

I will still weigh the price and quality of a whisky in the final note, but on a smaller scale. From this day onward I will not give the price of the bottle a full ten points, but I will appoint a score of -2 to +2 for the price of a bottle, if applicable.

That means that the final score a whisky gets is not longer a total out of 50 points, but out of 40 points, with an adjustment of -2 to +2. This will make the difference for a perfect dram of too high a price (40 – 2 = 38) and a great dram that is incredibly cheap (40 + 2 = 42). -1 and +1 will also be appointed for whisky that is slighty expensive but affordable and understandable, or a little cheap but not much under the expected price. 0 points on price means that the price makes sense, but is neither cheap nor expensive for the bottle of whisky.

The total of points a whisky scores will be divide by eight to get to one to five stars. The final score will be rounded off (36 points gives 4,5 = 5 stars, 35 gives 4,375 = 4 stars).

Update: Since I am translating some posts I will also adjust the scores of previously tasted drams. Dutch posts will not be adjusted.