Jim Murray's Whisky Bible 2009

Pre-order available from play, release date 6/10/2008

Jimmy.

Thanks well spotted. And at a mere 8.49 with free delivery too. Hurrah!
It hasn't made it onto Amazon yet.

Had an e-mail today from play.com....
We regret to inform you that one or more titles you have ordered from us has been withdrawn from general release. Your order has been cancelled and you may rest assured that you will not be charged.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this has caused you. Titles affecting you personally are listed below:

5983481 Jim Murray - Jim Murray's Whisky Bible

Hmmmmm

I've not had that email (yet) but i see they have removed the pre-order function.

Well if it turns up at whiskyfest next week (10/10) I will pick one up.....

Cheers,

I believe it is on its way... just have patience!

16th Oct 2008 - 'Whisky Bible acquired by Dram Good Books'

http://www.dramgoodbooks.com/newsite/news/main.htm (LINK BROKEN)

Explains all those cancelled orders, I suppose.

The book is due for release on Oct 23rd.

Excellent I will pick this up too

The 2009 edition appears to be on sale at the Dram Good Books site now. Not sure if this is for pre-order though. And you can get Jim to sign and dedicate it for you!!! No more worries about taking your own copy into a whisky shop - it'll have your name in it.

ordered already one for me one for bro - Merry Christmas

I can confirm that this book exists. I have one beside me.

He seems to have tasted lots of different whiskies and rated them out of 100.

Sounds good Aidan.

Any interesting award winners this edition?

I won't give too much away, but the whisky of the year is Ard**g Uig**ail... I can give more clues if required.

For the Irish, Jam**on Rarest Vintage Reserve got 96 points.

Good grief! He's picked an Ardbeg as whisky of the year? I'm stunned.

Yes, and he's now developed the ability to rate a whisky down to the half point. He can distinguish the difference in quality between a 97 point whisky and a 97.5 point whisky.

I like it all the same, but I don't know why.

Ha ha that's crazy. Still I like it too and will get one shortly.

Yep mine arrived today. I wonder if the PC6 getting 96.5 points will get them moving off the shelfs.

Jimmy321 wrote:I wonder if the PC6 getting 96.5 points will get them moving off the shelfs.

It's enough to make even the most positive people cynical

He actually scored it 96.499999999998 in laboritory conditions, but rounded it up to 96.5 to save on ink.

I've just read the notes for PC 6, very descriptive

Here, I don't mean to insult anyone on this website, but there has to be some spoofery involved in marking something to one in one hundred.

I suppose I'm a bit of a spoofer myself at the best of times. Maybe I've even tried to do it myself. I can't remember.

Jim Murray was here - honest - he posted a good long message explaining all about his working methods.

I guess you had to be there to see it.

Yes, just before the website changed its appearance.

Jimmy321 wrote:I've just read the notes for PC 6, very descriptive

And what about the rest?

You will need to buy it to find out, there a few notable omissions from the 2007 some PE's and Laga 16 are on longer listed. However the are loads of new entries, still well worth buying imo.

Posts from the 29th - 30th appear to be missing.

Amazing! Probably the best post i've seen during my short time on the forum has gone!!! Jim Murray joins the forum for a special guest visit and his post is lost. Did anyone take a copy of the text who could paste it back in?

mr_fox wrote:Amazing! Probably the best post i've seen during my short time on the forum has gone!!! Jim Murray joins the forum for a special guest visit and his post is lost. Did anyone take a copy of the text who could paste it back in?

pulled from a search engine cache, what follows is Jim Murray's post from a couple of days ago...

Delighted to see my new scoring system has generated some debate. And a few laughs.

Firstly, I would like to congratulate Aiden. My score was actually 96.499999999997, but you were close enough....!!

Secondly, don't waste all that good healthy cynicism: there are far more worthy causes around than JMWB09. The Ardbeg got World Whisky of the Year, certainly. But it was from a direction I had not for one moment expected. This particular brand of Ardbeg had not historically been among my favourites. So I was rendered almost speechless when I happened across it in Vancouver earlier in the year. Sadly, it is a bottling available only in Canada. And the reason it got World Whisky of the Year was not because it was Ardbeg (Willie!!). But because of the 1,227 new whiskies I tasted this year I simply could not find one that was better.

Next, may I explain why I have altered the points system. The reasons are two-fold and of equal importance. For quite some time it was quite possible that there would be no Whisky Bible for 2009. So, for legal reasons, we prepared an alternative book which would follow on. Again for legal reasons it could not be identical to The Bible, so part of the design was to incorporate something I had been seriously thinking about for the last two or three years: marking to half points.

As you know, the Bible is unique in that it splits the marking up into four sections: nose, taste, finish and balance, each being marked out of 25. So when you look at it that way, it is easier to score half points. There have been countless times when I thought one whisky marginally better than another in a certain department, but it really didn't merit a full point; or it may have had hinted at a tiny flaw, though again one not quite worth docking a point for. This helped clear up that untidiness in my own mind and helped me mark with a degree of extra accuracy.

Perhaps, also, it is worth bearing in mind that I regard my scoring system as working slightly like the Richter scale: the further you go up, the bigger the jump in quality between points.

So, whilst I am grateful for Nick Brown's thoughtful advice, I trust he won't be too offended if I live without it. Nick, how can I "overscore" my "favourite brands", as you call them? The reason they are my "favourite" is because I regularly give them high marks: it is hardly likely that a distillery always scoring high 70s and low 80s will count among my favourites, is it....? And I am curious as to how you appear to know that I don't already compare this year's whisky for a particular brand or score type with the previous year's, or the one before that. For the record, Nick, I do exactly that. I pay a painful amount of money each year for warehousing space so I have that ability: I store all samples (about 10,000 of them) and test like for like to ensure I am remaining on track as occasion demands. Ask David Rankin, my samples research coordinator, who spends countless hours digging around in the semi-light for some random sample or other. It is not exactly his favourite part of the job: I'm sure he'd be delighted if you gave him a hand one day....

Far, then, from the scoring being meaningless, for me it is quite the opposite. When I worked out the World Whisky of the Year the half dozen or so highest scorers were tasted against each other. I also threw in some which scored slightly lower, to see if any of them were better than the top six (if so then I had called it wrong and the offender would have to be down-graded). They weren't, and were flung out of the "competition" pretty sharpish leaving the high flyers to battle it out. Also, as you might expect when tasting over 1,500 whiskies this year the same whisky did get poured under a slightly different name and tasted twice. We found one case of this, and without realizing and several months apart I had scored each sample identically, thereby on discovery of the error doing myself no harm in the eyes of my staff and giving myself a much-needed shot in the arm - as when you are four months (seven days a week, 12 hours a day) and 1,000 whiskies in, you do begin to wonder...So the scoring system must be doing something right. Oh, and what is so ridiculous about a score of 97.5? When you have tasted nearly 4,000 whiskies, is there not a possibility that at least one of them will be as near as damn it perfect....?

Thankfully, however, I am not a machine. And this is not an exact science and I am the first to admit that there will be the odd head-scratcher. That is what makes it fun, surely. Please enjoy the 2009 Whisky Bible. I don't expect or even want you to agree with every single score I give (though I'm be amazed if you aren't as knocked out by the stunning, feints-free, PC6 as I was) as there is nothing better than an open mind and open debate. I just hope that my Bible adds to your enjoyment; that you find it consistent and friendly and just helpful enough that maybe it points you in the direction of a quite excellent whisky which you may not have tried except that I pricked your curiosity. That, for me, is what it's all about.
Jim Murray

Thanks David. Much appreciated.

Good job, David.

I'd not seen that before, it makes a good honest read I felt. Thanks DavidH

Methinks that a sensible writer would be humble enough to take on board the suggestions of his/her readership.

In the case of the "Whisky Bible", perhaps more time worrying about typos, noteworthy omissions from whiskies tasted, out-of-date comments (ie 'to be released in 2006' in the 2008 edition).

Less time concerning oneself with trying to 'badge' malts in 1/200th segments (especially when pretty much everything seems to start with 60/100 just for being there)

Thanks David, I had heard much about Jim#s post, but as I wasn't around for a few days, I totally missed it.


Personally, I hate giving scores to a whisky and when I read books which do this, I tend to ignore the scores.
What i look for is a good description for each aspect of a whisky and then I will decide upon what I read as to whether I look out for a bottle.

Sometimes, when I am looking for something a little different for a tasting or gourmet evening, I will read through a few entries and try to find something which I think fits.

Scoring never enters the equation for me, just nose, palate, finish and overall impressions.
MT

I got my book on friday. Jim wrote in it " To Les keep the faith. "


Thanks Jim.

It would be real nice if Jim's post could be reinstated from the database. I think it mean't a lot to many forum members.