Whisky Education: The Whisky Recommender

Name: The Whisky Recommender
URL: www.whiskyrecommender.com

Ever wondered where to get that dram you tried when you were overseas back in Singapore? Or what other whiskies are similar to your favourite one that you have drunk loyally for many a year? Well, here is a software that will greatly aid one in answering all these questions! For the inaugural post under the name sgwhisky, here's an exclusive review of a new web application that has just been released, The Whisky Recommender.

The Whisky Recommender is the brainchild of friend and fellow whisky enthusiast Matthew Fergusson-Stewart. A Whisky Consultant here in Singapore, Matthew has been working on an application to aid whisky lovers for a long time now, and The Whisky Recommender is the product of all the hard work that has been put in for the past few years.

At it's core, The Whisky Recommender is a web application that generates a distinct profile of whisky that one likes based on the whiskies that they have tried before. It then not only recommends other whiskies that are similar to the ones that are favoured, but also gives a list of the places in Singapore (plans for other countries are in the pipeline) to get these drams. It's interface is intuitive, clean and very user friendly, with the only knowledge of whisky required at the start being the names of the whiskies one has tried before. I was one of the lucky few individuals invited to test this software, and I must say I was pretty impressed!

The Whisky Recommender, as highlighted earlier, starts off by asking one to list the whiskies that one has tried by simply choosing whether one liked it or not. This forms the backbone of the analysis that would be later generated for the user. Boasting a very extensive list of Single Malt Scotch Whiskies, one would expect to find even most of the obscure distilleries that one may have tried before. It also contains the standard popular brands like The Macallan, Laphroaig, Glenfiddich and Glenlivet, making it very much an application for all sorts of whisky drinkers, be it enthusiasts or just hobby drinkers.

With the information collected, the results are then generated based on flavour profiles that are divided into around 10 categories. It then shows the percentage of the whiskies in that profile that one has already tried (e.g. You have tried 63% of B Style whiskies), and also the percentage of such whiskies that you like (e.g. you like 75% of the B Style whiskies that you tried).
On top of that, it also, more importantly in my opinion, tells you what other whiskies are within the various flavour profiles, and this helps one find out what other whiskies may be to one's liking!

Lastly, The Whisky Recommender also helps show where one can get various whiskies here in Singapore in the 'Recommendations' page, which is an ongoing project with much more expansion of data slated as the application grows. Currently, one can find out whether he or she can find a whisky in two of the more reputable whisky retailers in Singapore, The Auld Alliance and Fine Spirits @ La Maison Du Whisky.

This very simple yet informative application is one that really aids a person who is interested in whisky as it not only helps one discover the flavour profiles that one actually likes, it also points them in the right direction in finding similar whiskies with the same profile. It also shows the flavour profiles of other whiskies, which one might find interesting and worth a try! What I personally like about The Whisky Recommender is that it also breaks the old division of Scotch whisky by geographical locations. Whilst it is true that there are commonalities in whiskies based on the regions that they are produced, there are exceptions to the norm, like Bunnahabhain in Islay which does not produce peated whisky, and BenRiach in Speyside, which prefers to peat their whiskies quite a bit more than other Speyside brands. By basically dividing whiskies by their flavour profile, The Recommender really helps one to discover whiskies more accurately and to not end up with a whisky that may be from the same region, but possesses totally different flavours from the ones they prefer.

The only gripe that one may have with this application is that even within brand names, there may be different styles of whisky, Bruichladdich being an example of one that releases bottlings that have very different flavour profiles. Some others may say that older expressions of a distillery differ from their newer ones too. However, accounting for that would entail creating a massive database that analyzes by specific single whiskies, which would be very cumbersome. It would also mean that the user may have to remember the specific expressions from a distillery that one may have tried, making it much lesser user-friendly. Hence if one can overlook such intricacies, it is clear to say that The Whisky Recommender does very well in helping people with a preference for a general flavour profile.

Simply put, The Whisky Recommender is a great little application for one who is looking to know more about the various flavour profiles of Scotch whisky, and in the meantime, find out what other brands they may also like. It's very simple and user-friendly interface is also a real winner, making it accessible to all those who are interested in Whisky

All in all, well done to Matthew and his team! This is indeed a great software!