Saturday 6 June 2020

Blind Tasting Consortium

You may have followed one of my #BlindTasting or #MiniTasting sessions over the last few years - a group of friends who swap samples and try to discover what they are - sharing their thoughts on Twitter. 



The Blind Tasting Consortium is the logical next step in expanding our #BlindTasting group, we've always struggled to think of a way of expanding it and this seems like a good way of doing it.

It's basically a bottle buying consortium to do Blind Tastings - we each put in £35 and get 5 x 50ml samples. This is a consortium buy not a business, no profit being made by anyone and no charges being made - we each pay an equal share of the overall costs, remaining funds are carried over to the next session.


Those who want to can take it in turns to organise a session, choosing and buying the whisky, bottling it and sending it out - about 4 hours work.



The organiser will use the £980 to buy sample bottles, boxes, labels and postage leaving around £830 to buy 10 bottles of whisky, 2 bottles each of 5 different whiskies. They then fill 140 sample bottles - that's 5 for each of the 28 of us, label them 1 to 5 and parcel them up - and send them out.




We put a date in the diary to do a Twitter based tasting, 28 of us blind taste 5 drams and give our honest opinions knowing nothing about the whiskies - no preconceived ideas, no marketing, just the liquid. 

After the final dram the bottles will be revealed! There is a optional Zoom session running alongside and as an after party!




It's all about having a fun evening, enjoying whisky with mates! The idea is that each person in the consortium can take it in turn to organise a session, so we all have a go at guessing the drams!


The best way to follow along is using Tweetdeck - instructions here.

Sorry if you didn't get asked to join but I had to limit it to UK people I'd swapped samples with before, there is a reserve list for substitutions when someone in the gang can't make it, so let me know if you are interested. 

You can read my tasting notes from the #BlindDrams here: BTC1, BTC2, BTC3, BTC4, BTC5, BTC6, BTC7, BTC8, BTC9, BTC10, BTC11, BTC12BTC13, BTC14BTC15BTC16BTC17BTC18, BTC19, BTC20, BTC21, BTC22BTC23, BTC24, BTC25, BTC26, BTC27, BTC28, BTC29, BTC30, BTC31, #BTC32, #BTC33, #BTC34, #BTC35, #BTC36, #BTC37, #BTC38, #BTC39, #BTC40


Overall Score so far (since BTC11 new scoring system) with the latest set of 5 drams highlighted:

Where the latest tasting's drams fit in the overall scores.

Tasting by tasting scores (latest on the left).

Average score of each dram in a tasting and the with min and max ranges.


How the latest tasting's total scores line up against the previous tastings.


#BTC41 is being picked by Billy @BillyCowan




#BTC40 was picked by Sam @ReviewsWhisky and Mike @whiskyrover





#BTC39 was picked by Paul @pswhisky




#BTC38 was picked by Andy @PadWhisky





#BTC37 was picked by John @jwbassman_






#BTC36 was picked by Brian @MaltMusings






#BTC35 was picked by Damian @newdramrising




#BTC34 was picked by Mike @WhiskyWings




#BTC33 was picked by Ben @WhiskyWithMolly




#BTC32 was picked by Duncan @whiskytip





#BTC31 was picked by Patrick @LeaskPatrick






#BTC30 was picked by Sam @ReviewsWhisky and Mike @whiskyrover





#BTC29 was picked by Paul @pswhisky





#BTC28 was picked by Brian @MaltMusings






#BTC27 was being picked by Duncan @whiskytip




#BTC26 was picked by Paul @Newckie






#BTC25 was picked by Billy @BillyCowan





#BTC24 was picked by Mike @WhiskyWings






#BTC23 was picked by Duncan @socialdrammer







#BTC22 was picked by Ben @WhiskyWithMolly





#BTC21 was picked by John @jwbassman_






#BTC20 was picked by @ReviewsWhisky and @whiskyrover







#BTC19 was picked by Callum @glen_scotia & Kate @kccjf







#BTC18 was picked by Damian @newdramrising






#BTC17 was picked by Billy @BillyCowan






#BTC16 was picked by Ben @WhiskyWithMolly







#BTC15 was picked by John @jwbassman_






#BTC14 was picked by Callum @glen_scotia & Kate @kccjf






#BTC13 was picked by @derekcuster






#BTC12 was picked by @thedramble







#BTC11 was picked by @MaltMusings



The scoring system is changing from #BTC11 to make it easier to compare across different tastings.

Rather than the 5 whiskies being ranked, each person will rate each whisky, before it's revealed, on a simple 0-5 scale:

0 – I would smile graciously if given a bottle of this then promptly deliver it to the local Primary School charity raffle. 
 
1 – I’d drink it if given to me as a gift, but wouldn’t waste my own money on a bottle

2 – At a decent price I’d buy a glass of this, but wouldn’t invest in a whole bottle.

3 – Damn drinkable and within my price range, I’d happily buy (or have bought) one of these and enjoy it.

4 – I’d be over the moon if given a bottle of this, and would probably drink it fairly quickly.

5 – I’d suck the sweaty toes of a senior brand executive for the opportunity to have a single drop more of this.







#BTC10 was picked by @ReviewsWhisky and @whiskyrover


Re-live the evenings fun here!





#BTC9 was picked by @MckWhisky


Re-live the evenings fun here!






#BTC8 was picked by @stewedwhisky


Re-live the evenings fun here!





#BTC7 was picked by @ScotchB78 & @gordonsmith63


Re-live the evenings fun here!







#BTC6 was picked  by @chris_f74


Re-live the evenings fun here!





#BTC5 was picked by @TheWhiskyNovice


Re-live the evenings fun here!





#BTC4 was picked by @newdramrising


Re-live the evenings fun here!





#BTC3 was picked by @Mark_BCWS


Re-live the evenings fun here!





#BTC2 was picked by @jwbassman_


Re-live the evenings fun here!





#BTC1 was picked by @MaltMusings


Re-live the evenings fun here!





Overall stats:

Scoring for the fist 10 session was based on a simple 1-5 ranking process, whilst simple to use it made it difficult to compare across tastings. It was changed from #BTC11

Each person ranks the five whiskies in order 1 to 5, each position is assigned a weighting 5 to 1. The weighted average score for each item is then calculated as:

(5 x C1 + 4 x C2 + 3 x C3 + 2 x C2 + C1) / Num

Where:

C1, C2 ... C5 are the number of people who chose position 1, number of people who chose position 2, etc
Num is the total number of people who took part in the tasting and gave a ranking. 

This gives a ranking for each whisky, within its set of five, out of a possible maximum of 5.



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