Welcome to Dramateur Hour! I started this website in July 2026, mainly to document all my past, present and future whisky for my own reference. If it also helps people with similar tastes to mine choose a whisky, then that’s a bonus. You’ll notice a mix of new and old reviews as I get the site up and running. Once I have everything published from my backlog, I look forward to adding regular reviews on new whisky I’m drinking.
My introduction to whisky started like a lot of people’s – with cheap blends and Bourbon on nights out when I was much younger. I differed slightly though, in that I was drinking these neat, or at most with ice or soda. I always found it strange that people would drown the spirit out with cola. This inevitably led me on to single malts. A lot of whisky enthusiasts always remember the whiskies that kick-started it for them; for myself it was Glenfiddich 12 year old and Glenmorangie 10 year old.
Fast forward to today and, after 20+ years of being a whisky amateur (hence the site name), I enjoy everything from blends to single malts to single cask and everything in between. I’ve been a member of SMWS for many years and a lot of my purchases come through them, but I also enjoy original bottlings that showcase the profile of the distilleries. I prefer releases that are non-chill filtered and natural colour. Plenty of good bottles past and present are chill filtered and coloured, and I still enjoy them, but ultimately I like the thought that my whisky is no different than when it was in the cask (with the exception of water).
Reviewing
I take notes and review a bottle over multiple drams – this especially helps with whisky that is average at first. It’s only fair to give every bottle a chance over time, and some of the best bottles I’ve had are the ones that didn’t impress straight away.
I like to keep notes simple. A taste can take you somewhere specific – a food from your childhood, a particular holiday memory – and I could write at length about where mine take me, but those associations are personal and won’t mean much to anyone else. Strip it back and you’re left with the smells and tastes themselves, which is what you’re really after when deciding what to buy.
All bottles reviewed are purchased by me, and you’ll also notice prices are either in AUD or GBP. I frequently travel to the UK and have people visiting from there as well. This allows me to purchase bottles that either work out a lot cheaper in the UK or are hard to find in Australia, where I live.
There are already plenty of whisky review websites and social media channels out there. One piece of advice I’d give is to find one or two that seem to align with your own preferences. Whisky tasting is subjective, and tasting notes along with scores can vary a lot for the same bottling. By finding people who have similar tastes to yourself, you can be confident you’ll find most of their reviews helpful in choosing bottles.
Scoring
Again, I like to keep it simple, so I just use a scale of 1-10 (including half points, so technically 1-20). I decided to keep price out of the rating and focus just on the quality of the dram. With the price of whisky nowadays, including it would lead to ratings much lower than just focusing on what’s in the bottle. A general comment around value in each review I feel is better.
10: Perfection!
9: Exceptional
8: Great
7: Good
6: Enjoyable
5: Drinkable
4: Mediocre
3: Disappointing
2: Poor
1: Awful