About The Dramble

The Dramble is a growing independent website run by a group of passionate whisky enthusiasts. The site presents straightforward and genuine evaluations of all types of whiskies, as well as regular features and interviews that explore the rich tapestry of the vibrant whisky world.

Malt Whisky Yearbook - Websites to Watch (2020-2023*)
*2023 - one of Ingvar's favourite sites

To us, whisky appreciation is an inherently social activity based around the sharing of individual experiences and opinions. The number of whisky websites and blogs has risen tremendously over the past decade, and whilst each one adds to the growing knowledge pool of the whisky community, that knowledge is now widely dispersed. Let’s try to join it back up a bit.

The Dramble team

 

Matt McKay, Co-Founder and Lead Writer

As The Dramble’s editorial lead, Matt currently pens most of the content on the site. He is a Chartered Public Relations Practitioner by training, though is now working full-time in the whisky industry as Director of Whisky Creation and Outreach for Dunphail Distillery and Director of Marketing and Communications for Bimber Distillery. Matt has sat on the judging panels for whisky competitions and is one of few whisky writers to hold the IBD General Certificate in Distilling.

Danny Winbourne, Co-Founder and Lead Developer

As The Dramble’s Technical Wizard, Danny is responsible for making the site look and work as you see it today. He has a keen interest in Whisky, with a collection of over 130 bottles, and attends Matt’s whisky club each month.

A Web Developer by day, his skills along with Matt’s writing were an obvious partnership, which led to the birth of the Dramble.

Zander Crook, Contributing Writer

Zander found a passion for whisky at the University of Edinburgh's Water of Life Society while studying there for his PhD. He went on to spend a year as the society's whisky broker, which involved selecting tasting themes and whiskies for the tasting, as well as presenting at tastings. He is an applied health statistician by day, and like with his work, he enjoys taking a detailed and thoughtful approach to the whiskies he tastes.

We’re always delighted to hear from fellow whisky enthusiasts who want to share their opinions, stories views and reviews. If you’re interested in writing a guest post for the site, or joining our editorial team do get in touch.

The Dramble was founded in April 2017 and has grown consistently since. As of January 2021 The Dramble attracts over 21,000 unique visitors each month, delivering a total of 39,000 page views. Our geographic reach is broad with visitors from over 186 countries. Our biggest audiences by demographics are 25-34 year olds (33.5%) followed by 18-24 years olds (27.5%).

The Dramble as an independent whisky review and opinion site is committed to providing you with balanced and accurate information. We follow the Drink Blog Code 2007. The addition of external links to other whisky blog sites is not a broader endorsement of that site. Similarly, the inclusion of affiliate links does not influence the editorial direction of our site.

The Dramble reviews whiskies from its own extensive liquid library – it also produces tasting notes from sample bottles (either purchased or swapped with fellow whisky enthusiasts). Where press samples have been provided we will note this clearly. However, the submitting of samples does not by itself guarantee a favourable review – we review based purely on the quality of the spirit in our own opinions.

Given our Lead Writer’s affiliation with Bimber Distillery (as of September 2019) we no longer review English whiskies.

Our ‘Tastings’ section gives you our views on whiskies from all over the world. Scores are given to provide a guide to our feelings of the quality of a whisky in general, but these are no substitute for tasting yourself. The rating of whisky is an oft-times thorny topic with many a post written favouring one scoring system over another (or giving a rationale for not scoring at all). The Dramble does score, and it uses a 100 point scale. Reviews are a personal thing – a matter of opinion. This is just ours.

96 - 100 The Holy Grail of whisky - we’ve not found it yet
92 - 95 Outstanding - amongst the best we’ve tasted
88 - 91 Excellent - you really should endeavour to try this
84 - 87 Very good - well worth your time
80 - 83 Good - no complaints, but no fireworks either
76 - 79 Average - certainly drinkable
72 - 75 Below average - probably inoffensive, possibly rather boring
68 - 71 Poor - your time would be better spent elsewhere
64 - 67 Very poor - to be avoided
60 - 63 Flawed – something has gone wrong here
56 - 59 Very flawed – heading toward being offensive
Below 56 Varying degrees of outright no – hopefully you won’t die from the experience

All content on this site is licensed under CC-BY-NC.



You are free to:

• Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
• Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
• The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

• Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
• NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
• No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

We may collect website usage data. Collecting this data helps us understand what you are looking at on the site and therefore improve our offering and customise the website to you. We hold this usage data securely. We also follow stringent procedures to ensure we work with all data in line with the Data Protection Act 1998.