I apologize. I really do. It has gotten to the point where I HATE having to point out the abundantly obvious, but sometimes it gets so bad, so ridiculous that any thinking person simply has to speak out, or just puke...
First, as always, a bit of background...
Rating spirits is not nuclear science. The whole idea of rating spirits can be easily and directly traced to the amazing Robert Parker - the wine reviewer who literally changed the world of wine, and for the better. In addition to being scrupulously independent, and possessing a palate equalled by few, it was Parker who first decided to adopt the American Grading System to wine.
He chose this system as it was familiar and understandable by anyone with half a brain, Canadians obviously excepted. You know the one:
A - Excellent
B - Good, above average
C - Average
D - Below average, but passing (barely)
F - Fail
He set up a 100 point scale, but all wines were scored between 50 - 100. Again, I don't need to tell any of you this, but for the occasional lost monkeys who end up here, that's...
A - 90-100
B - 80-89
C - 70-79
D - 60-69
F - 50-59
It should also be noted that these ratings, just like grade school, will fall into a normal curve or distribution, with "C" or "70-79", being average, and representing, by far, the greatest number of spirits. That's what friggin "average" is. The old, familiar "bell" curve. So far, so simple, so obvious, so common, so well, understandable, right?
Not so fast Rocky, er Rock for Brains...!
The first idiotic permutation of this well established system was - of course - our good Canadian friend, the Frozen Furball. Here's his bizarre system, developed before he even started his drinking hobby:
This ridiculous system fails before it starts, for these reasons:0-25 A spirit with a rating this low would actually kill you.
26-49 Depending upon your fortitude you might actually survive this.
50 -59 You are safe to drink this…but you shouldn’t.
60-69 Substandard swill which you may offer to people you do not want to see again.
70-74 Now we have a fair mixing rum or whisky. Accept this but make sure it is mixed into a cocktail.
75-79 You may begin to serve this to friends, again probably still cocktail territory.
80-84 We begin to enjoy this spirit neat or on the rocks. (I will still primarily mix cocktails)
85-89 Excellent for sipping or for mixing!
90-94 Definitely a primary sipping spirit, in fact you may want to hoard this for yourself.
95-97.5 The Cream of the Crop
98+ I haven’t met this bottle yet…but I want to.
1. He completely leaves the now standard scoring systems.
2. He differentiates "mixers" from "sippers", favoring sippers but scores them together in the same system. This is like using the same ratings to compare dump trucks to sports cars. Thus an absolutely crappy "sipper" will outscore a simply brilliant "mixer".
3. FWIW, his average score is about 87, about 17 points high.
This is pure and unadulteraged mooseshit.
Next up: Dudley Doorong...
Doorong, aka Lance, aka Ruminsky, aka the racist Lone Caner, aka the No Brainer - has decided to follow Rock fer Brain's lead and once again intermingles what he calls "mixers" with "sippers" and with the same inherent failings. But for some reason his "average" is around "61", at least 10 points too low. The difference between the Furball and the Caner? Astounding.Rating system
40-50 Hooch. Deficient in either nose, body, flavour or finish (or all of them), barely worth a mix.
51-60 Decent for a cocktail but not much else. Not meant as a sipping spirit. May make a brilliant cocktail.
61-70 You might want to experiment with drinking this one neat. In this case, you really should.
71-75 Good sipping rum with a few discordant notes that can still make a good cocktail. I’d prefer to sip it myself.
76-80 Really excellent, top tier drink. May be unique in some way that goes against the prevailing opinion
81-90 No additive or ice should ever touch such a superb offering.
90+ Marriage material. Sell the Benz, ‘cause you’ll have to.
The spread between the two, for the same average rum is - raise your leg, please - 26 points!! Let's consider the Lone Brainer's recent review of Plantation's Barbadian 5 year, a rum that he considers the best of all his 5 years:
No Brainer's Score: 69
El Frozen Furball's: 88.5
Flat Ass Bottom Line
I'm not even going to bother discussing the Furball's tortured system which further breaks down his scores into whether or not the spirit has a nice label or cork, or the Caner's prejudice against rums that have been aged less than 10 years, but suffice it to say that these systems are beyond bizarre, with the Caner scoring way too low, and the Frozen Butt Licker scoring way too high.
Of the two, Lance has by far the better palate, but the reviews force you to decypher look-at-me descriptors like "...The feel of this rum as I drank it was of a warm freshly laundered pillow...". And that's one of the less self-indulgent ones. Certainly better than than the woodie the Wolfboy gets over "The bottle closure is a high density cork which is sure to give the consumer that nice satisfying ‘pop’ when it is first opened.". Whew! Thinking of the Wolfboy "popping" is something you really don't want to do just before dinner, ugh...
So that's it. Another bullshit rant put to bed, and with a nice, satisfying poop, er pop I might add...
