There was a day, really not all that long ago when single malt whiskys and rum were niche products made by a great number of independent distillers. Fortunately - or not - their fine and unique products became known and sales increased.
Enter Mitt Romney and his vulture buddies at the Diageo's of this planet. Soon a handful of mega-corporations engaged in a frenzy of buying these independents and slowly but surely instituting quality control with the objective of standardization, predictability and profit. Fack experimentation. For example rums that often contained rums well older than the stated age were often once blended in, but the new corporate masters reduced that addition, with the idea of using these fine old rums for new "super-premiums". Increasing sales and demand sealed the deal.
Thus, your Mount Gay Extra Old might not be quite as old as it once was. This has been discussed (here). For now I urge you to consider what the inestimable Johannes of the Malt Maniacs observed...
The presence of quasi-commercial rum and other sites doesn't help. These monkeys have imbibed the Kool Aid, enjoy the free product and unearned adulation of the unwashed simian sycophants, and they prosper by promoting - not challenging - the situation.Johannes: "One of the things that attracted me to single malt whisky in the first place was the authenticity & simplicity of a product that showed so much complexity and variation. Because single malts were still a small 'niche' market of just 2 or 3 percent of the total Scotch whisky market in the early 1990's, there was relatively little attention for marketing in this category - as opposed to the world of blended whiskies.
This situation has now changed considerably. Sophisticated marketing, PR and advertising play a crucial role in today's malt whisky world.
At the same time, there's an ongoing trend of homogenisation. While age old traditions and regional characteristics are emphasised in the window of the store, progress takes place in the workshop. The last few decades have seen significant changes in the whisky industry, like the abolishing of direct heating or the use of only a few different barley and yeast strains. Most of these changes at the production side of the whisky industry were aimed at eliminating the factor 'chance' from the process.
Granted, there are positive developments as well (like the growing availability of unchillfiltered malts), but on the whole it doesn't seem enough anymore to let the product speak for itself... "
Shame.
