Linkwood 17yo 100º Proof
SV Exceptional Casks | 57.1% ABV
Score: 8/10
Something special.
TL;DR
So much delicious PX sherry cask, yet still a bold spirit on display
Are you The Product?
“If you aren't paying for the product, you are the product.”
I’m not sure where this expression originates from, but it’s a succinct reminder of the hidden costs of ‘free’ services, especially in the digital age. Be it a social platform, a free app, or a search engine, the transaction isn’t immediately clear, but it is very real.
To be specific, the way you interact with the service, a prompt, a search, a like, a comment, all of these add to an unimaginably large number of data points that create invaluable insight for someone; a product that provides actionable intel, and that product is you.
Let’s put this in a whisky context. Imagine a scenario where you have a decent social media presence and you’re invited to take part in a hypothetical VIP tasting at a traditional dunnage warehouse of a distillery. The air is filled with the scent of whisky, and you are being offered special drams - often straight from the cask.
“What type of glassware would you prefer?” you‘re asked. You pick a nice copita because you feel fancier than a standard Glencairn today. You are poured a rich and dark whisky, and you stick your nose in. Rich notes from the unpeated whisky hit your olfactory receptors, prompting you to take a sip. It is glorious and, as the warm liquid slowly slides down, notes of caramel and honey dance on your tongue. And then you’re poured another dram, this time a peated one, and the process repeats.
As the tour finishes, you have sampled six carefully selected drams of whisky and you realise you haven’t paid. You don’t even know how much the tour cost, yet the host insists that everything is free, such is the generosity of the distillery owners and there is no obligation to buy or do anything.
What you don’t realise is that every step of the way, you are being observed, offering up data - big brother style: starting from what glassware you picked, your reaction when you saw the whisky, when you nosed the whisky, when you sipped the whisky, when you finished the whisky. How many milliseconds did you spend nosing before sipping, whether your eyes lit up or your brows furrowed, whether you were relaxed or nervous, how your micro facial expressions differed from dram to dram, your uhms and ahs, what you shared, what you expressed joy about; every reaction and every non-reaction.
On top of that, they also gathered everything about you: your age, your gender, your ethnicity, your marital status, where you come from, where you’re headed next, why you were visiting, whether you were a repeat visitor; the list goes on.
They have been collecting data about you and how you interacted with them and their offering. This data will be fed back into their database, dictating their next strategy, how their next product will be made, how it will be marketed and priced, where it will be sold, to extract every pound or dollar from you - and everyone like you - in the future.
You didn’t pay in cash for the tasting, but you’ve paid with something else, yourself. You were the product.
Perhaps such a hypothetical experience is a bit over the top, but this is exactly what’s happening in the real world, with every one of our digital interactions and experiences. We are all part of it. Profit-chasing companies don’t pass on the opportunity to extract every last ounce of data and its inherent value from under your nose, mostly without you even noticing.
Now let’s take an unexpected turn: Dramface is free, isn’t it?
Reviews are free, features are free, Norrie’s whisky news is free, even the podcasts are free. Membership is optional, and Dramface doesn’t exactly lavish its members with heaps of perks, yet it has the audacity to offer to charge them £3.99 per month.
Does this make you the product? No, I think not at all.
Through merely existing, Dramface costs money and it generates data. Like every website ever, it measures how many visitors it has, how often they visited and from where, using what kind of device and browser. It will also tell us how long they stayed and many pages they visited. It’s of course completely anonymous, we cannot tell who anyone is, just that they were here.
How do we use this data, in our context? Well, it seems… we don’t.
I’m one of the newer members of the writing team, having just enjoyed my first-year anniversary of having my thoughts published here, but I think I speak for the entire team when I say what follows.
In the time I’ve been writing for Dramface - I have never once been guided or asked to write about anything specific. I have never been chased or pushed to submit an article and I have never had any of my thoughts challenged, denied or rejected. Questioned? Yes, but only with a desire for clarity.
On rare occasions, we see stats shared, but only in the spirit of “Hey! We’re doing the right thing!” They are used as reassurance of relevance and sharing that joy, not for design or direction.
Dramface is a collective of individual thought and opinion with no requirement for uniform agreement. It’s intended to be a reflection of the community of whisky consumers. This is how I see Dramface’s value proposition: the team of writers is the product.
Writers at Dramface are not paid. Yet, collectively, we show up every weekday to write a long-form review of a whisky or two - or sometimes fifteen - plus the occasional deep dive feature or fun pile-on review. Despite having editors and sub-editors who try to catch all our typos and blunders, our opinions are preserved. Scores may be challenged - but only if they don’t match the words - never because an editor disagrees.
Dramface offers us the platform to fulfil our insatiable need to tell stories, to rant, to self-indulge, and sometimes even to overshare, all for the love of whisky. Without Dramface, where might we find an outlet to be so opinionated about an alcoholic drink? Our friends and families have long had enough of us talking about the water of life. As my wife likes to say; “Just shut up and drink the damn thing”.
We could do it ourselves - build a website and promote it; it’s not difficult. But Dramface and its readership are already here with a hundred and sixty thousand reads every month - and we’re still new and growing. All the while it’s exciting and fun to have like-minded, supportive peers.
Talking of which, let’s get back to that data gathering thing…
Did I mention that we are fiercely independent? We review only the whiskies which we buy with money earned from our day jobs (or inherited from a Nigerian prince, I can’t rule that out), so we can write freely about the whiskies, positively or negatively, and we don’t get a penny from anyone other than our voluntary membership (well, except for the occasional direct-to-writer contributions through our Buy Me a Dram links at the bottom of each article!).
On the odd occasion, where a producer has offered to send us a bottle for review, it goes through our editor-in-chief, and he delivers it to a writer who puts their hand up. They are accepted under the agreement that a review need not be written but, should it be, the editorial team have no control over the outcome. We also declare it to be so.
Furthermore, the writer is never in direct contact with the provider of the bottle, so they already feel free of any obligation to write positively about it, or to even write a review at all. We are human, after all, and even if these things are implicit in a transaction, it’s difficult to be negative about something when there are personalities involved. We try to take this bias out of things as much as possible, but in the end - this review model actually only accounts for less than 2% of our output. The rest of it is made up of our whiskies we buy ourselves.
I would dare to speculate that if we collaborated with producers, for example the Diageos and Edringtons of the world, you would see a lot of the latest special releases from distilleries being reviewed, probably positively, and Dramface would reap the benefits, but only in the short term. That approach would indeed make you, the reader, the product.
If we did that, we would very quickly lose your trust. You may not be aware of all the metrics being gathered in the background with each visit to each page, but you would immediately smell the corporate schmoozing - and who in our community would pay to support that?
Instead, we choose to take a different path, by maintaining our independence we don’t mind being the product. A truly free product, so that the reader in you could be the user, to use our honest and passionate opinions to be informed about whiskies that you could potentially be buying, or even have no chance of ever trying - and everything else in between.
If you value this and would like to see it succeed, you can of course support as a member, but it will always be optional. Our gaffer is annoyingly stubborn about this.
Murdo doesn’t pay Dramface to publish his reviews, therefore, Murdo must be the product. Feel free to use this product as you please.
Review
Signatory Vintage Linkwood 17yo, 100º Proof Exceptional Cask Series, 57.1% ABV
£88 paid. Mostly sold out.
I’m a fan of Linkwood. Should you doubt that; here’s a link to a recent Dramface quadruple review.
Score: 8/10
Something special.
TL;DR
So much delicious PX sherry cask, yet still a bold spirit on display
Nose
Dark but sharp and crisp, lovely cigar note, of course the grapefruit is here, roasted raisins, glazed pineapples.
Palate
Fizzy arrival, along with a dominant sweet cherry note. This almost reminds me of a cherry cola; raisins, prunes, overripe apples and pineapples, make up the assortment of dried fruits; sour dark chocolate and tobacco prominent on the development. While the fizziness refuses to go away; the grapefruits on this Linkwood come in the finish, where it lights up from the darkness of the nose and palate. Oranges, lemons and kiwi also show up; lots of vitamin C here. A very intense whisky at 57.1%, and adding a dash of water softens the intensity. Personally, I prefer it slightly diluted, with the sweet spot sitting at around 55%, maybe.
The Dregs
Another independently bottled Linkwood from me, and it’s different again. The handling of the sherry casks here is amazing, especially the 1st fill PX casks, not only did it not dominate the spirit, it enhanced and complemented the bright citrus of Linkwood with notes of tobacco and chocolate, and dare I say a whiff of smoke.
Another very positive review of Linkwood from me. I don’t want to be handing out 8s for free, but Signatory hits it out of the park again.
If I was writing on any other outlet, you would think that I get compensated by Diageo, but because this is Dramface, I’m only accountable to you, the reader. On these same pages you will see lesser opinions about Linkwood and Signatory’s bottlings. It’s all grist for the whisky botherer’s mill. And what a mill that is. Where in the world would I find an audience who’s willing to read about another Linkwood review?
I’ll change my mind here; I’m the user as well. Dramface is the product. Enjoy it, or not, we intend to stay.
Score: 8/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. MMc
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