And not only has the matrix grown in size - it has 'given birth' to the MM Monitor in the process
as well! While the matrix only includes whiskies that were sampled and scored by at least four different
maniacs, the monitor includes all whiskies (single malts, blends & grains) that we 'collectively' sampled.
The monitor (hosted on Whiskyfun by Serge Valentin) now lists over 10,000 different whiskies.

Why & How We Score

It's almost impossible to quantify & qualify why we end up loving a whisky.
It's all very personal. Do you prefer a nicely composed and balanced nose, or
an expressive one that highlights extreme traits of a malt? Do you like peat?
Are you looking for a sweet finish - or a dry one that just goes on and on?

Since the WHY stuff all happens mostly in the 'Black Box' area of our minds anyway, we decided to focus our efforts
on trying to 'calibrate' and 'synchronise' our various individual (1-100) rating scales as much as we possibly could.
We'll probably never get completely 'in synch' (some maniacs use scores below 50 while others don't), but generally
speaking most maniacs have become quite adept at expressing exactly HOW MUCH they love a malt in two digits.

Many personal differences still remain, but that was the whole point about building the matrix to begin with.
After a while we learned how to 'read' each other's scores - and how to translate them into the feelings that the
other maniac was experiencing when he (or she) scored that particular malt. Simple enough, eh? Well, I hope so...
At least you should be able to find one or more 'soul mates' on the matrix if you've tried a few whiskies.

With so many different scores on the matrix & monitor... Why Should I Trust The Maniacs?

You shouldn't! Well, not all of them at least...
Personal taste and preferences are the most important factors when it comes to rating a single malt whisky.
Maybe there are one or more maniacs with tastes similar to your own, but there are bound to be a few you disagree with as well.
But that's the beauty of the matrix and the monitor, you see? When we started out we still gave more 'weight' to the ratings of the more
experienced drammers in the calculation of our official average score. Later we realised that the opinions of 'beginners' had just as much
value as those of the older and wiser maniacs. The fact that somebody has tasted more whiskies doesn't make him a 'better' taster.
Whether a malt maniac has a 'malt mileage' of 100 or 1000, his individual voice helps to carry the tune of our collective songs of praise.
Or, in the case of the infamous Loch Dhu 10yo above, our collective cries of horror (except for our Indian maniac Krishna, that is)...
In case you feel overwhelmed by the thousands of malts on the matrix & monitor, check out the MaltMenu with +/- 200 official bottlings.
It offers a further distilled view on the major expressions - and includes tasting notes.

Matrix Revolutions

And dropping the 'weight factor' wasn't the only change on the matrix over the years.
While the old 'HTML' matrix only showed the opinion of a dozen maniacs (the twelve most
'experienced' maniacs to be precise) about a particular whisky, the new matrix contains the
scores of 18 team members. And while a whisky used to need just three scores to get on
the matrix, these days a minimum of four is required to calculate a useful average score.
 
One nasty consequence of 'raising the stakes' from 3 to 4 at the end of 2006 was that we
failed in our 'Hamstergeddon' quest to get at least 6 bottlings from each active and recently
closed distillery on the matrix. Despite the fact that we jumped from 12 to 18 matrix members
we've lost quite a few obscure entries that were sampled by 'just' three maniacs. Needless
to say you can still find those entries on the MM Monitor - as well as those with 1 or 2 scores.
You'll understand that we enthusiastically started 'Hamstergeddon' all over again in 2007.
 
The old matrix used colour coding for the average scores just like the new one (see above),
but I used colours in other elements as well to increase the information density further.
For example, bottlings that were released more than a decade ago were 'ghosted' because
the chances of the average customer running into them were slim. The highest score on the
matrix was highlighted in green, the lowest in red. We won't be able to offer quite the same
level of detail on the new matrix, but we're constantly trying to improve it nonetheless.
 
Please note that not all 24 certified malt maniacs are part of the 'matrix & monitor' team.
But that's just as well, because not all malt maniacs share the odd passion for numbers that
haunts some of us. Some simply don't believe in scores (which is perfectly acceptable) while
the 'professionals' on the team might not feel comfortable publishing all their scores on MM.
Besides, we want to avoid any possible misunderstandings about our fierce independence.

And that's pretty much all I can think of at the moment - well at least concerning the matrix...
Well, just one more thing, perhaps... There's one column on the matrix and monitor that displays the bottling year.
For many independent bottlings this is specified on the label, but with official bottlings like Aberlour 10yo or Oban 14yo that's not the case. In those cases we need to make assumptions based on label design, batch codes, place and time of purchase, etc. Especially with fast selling big batches as The Glenlivet 12yo we are never quite sure if we all tried the very same batch. But it's a credit to most master blenders that batches produced soon after each other are usually very much alike. Only by comparing today's bottling with those released five, ten or fifteen years ago, certain long term 'trends' start to emerge from the rough data. Food for analysis...

Sometimes the craziest endeavours sprout from the humblest seeds...
In 1999 a few of the earliest maniacs (Davin de Kergommeaux, Craig
Daniels & yours truly) thought it could be useful to draw up a 'matrix'
to compare our scores for a few dozen single malts we had all tried
with the ratings of our malts guru, Michael 'not the pop singer' Jackson.
From those humble beginnings it's grown into our most popular page.

June 7, 2009
 
3,300+
 
23,000+

First... A little history lesson

If you're still reading this you haven't jumped to the actual MM Matrix yet, which means you want to learn more about it. Good for you! I'll start with a little history lesson. We started working on the matrix in 1999 and as the number of numbers expanded, so did the scope of our little pet project. First, all we wanted was an easy way to compare our ratings for a few 'touchstone' single malts with those of Michael Jackson, who (as far as we knew) was the only whisky writer who scored his malts at the time. Synchronising all our individual scoring systems wasn't easy, but we found a working solution and our 'database' of scores grew as the team grew larger and we tasted more malts.
 
A few years after we started comparing our scores, we collected enough data to allow us to do some general historical and statistical analysis. As the number of whiskies on the MM Matrix grows, more conclusions can be drawn. As soon as we have four scores from various maniacs, a whisky is included in the official MM Matrix. However, there are many more whiskies that were sampled by only one, two or three maniacs. That's not quite enough to calculate a useful average score for the matrix, but one score is better than none. You can find our data on those whiskies in the 'Malt Maniacs Monitor'.

If you feel prepared to look at our scores now, you can open or download the matrix (it's a PDF file) by clicking on the big yellow button. On this page you can find an explanation of the codes and colours on the matrix - and that's especially useful for new visitors to this site, I imagine. You don't need the explanation to get 'the big picture' though. The matrix is a 'guide' that allows you to compare the scores of several different certified malt maniacs with your own impressions of a certain whisky. It's then easy to find out which malt maniacs have tastes that are most similar to your own... After you have found a few maniacs with similar tastes , you can scan their columns for other high scoring whiskies that you haven't tried yet. There's a good chance you'll like those whiskies too. That's pretty useful, wouldn't you say?

But why did we decide to build a matrix in the first place? I think
everybody agrees that Ardbeg 10yo and Ardbeg 17yo are both 'very
nice' single malt whiskies. Only by assigning scores or ratings and
comparing them can we determine which maniac likes which malt
best. And then we can start fighting about who is 'right' ;-)

But unless this is your first look at the Malt Maniacs Matrix you know that already... You can click on
the Big Yellow Button at the right to view or download the latest version. Attention, number crushers!
Over the last few years the size of the matrix has 'exploded'; the matrix now covers over 3000 malts
and has grown to more than 1 megabyte in size. Loading of the matrix could take quite some time...

The cornerstone of our rating system is a fictitious 'average' malt whisky that scores 75 points.
Any malt that scores at least five points more (> 80) is one we could recommend to everyone without any reservation. Five points higher on the 1-100 scale (> 85), a whisky starts to become 'highly recommendable' in our humble opinion. Anything scoring 90 points or more is simply fabulous, equaling universal approval for that whisky. Because individual tastes of the various maniacs are different, whiskies with an average score of 90 or more are very rare indeed.
Simply click HERE if you want to know more about our scores - or how to interpret them.

The Malt Maniacs Monitor is not aimed so much at comparing scores. As soon as one certified malt maniac has sampled a particular whisky, it is included in the monitor. So, it's a continually growing overview of the whiskies we've collectively sampled - and quite probably the largest overview of single malts available.

The possibility of misunderstandings is also the reason why we switched from Excel files to PDF.
When we still published the 'raw data' there were some enterprising individuals that used the data out of context. This usually happened with the best of intentions, but even so we didn't always feel comfortable with the conclusions that were attributed to our scores. Even when published on our very own website with additional explanations about the way to interpret our scores, some people still draw the wrong conclusions. To increase the chance of people understanding how to interpret our scores, we decided to switch to a simple PDF.