| General Questions |
| Questions about Scoring |
| Questions about Functionality |
| Questions about Registering |
| Questions about the Website |
| Questions from Distillers, Bottlers, Retailers, Distributors, and Others |
General Questions |
| How am I supposed to use this site? |
| There is a lot of data on this site and finding the best alcohol can seem impossible. Wanting to find a decent bottle of tequila and coming here to Proof66 you find over 650 different bottles of tequila (and counting). There are three main strategies for using this website: |
1) You want to try something new or different and a bottle or two catches your eye on the shelf. But you need some help to make sure you're not wasting your money. Head straight to the search field and punch in the name (or at least a piece of the name). You'll find quick information about relative rankings, price, and origin. Those notes include professional reviews and thoughts from regular folks as well. Even easier is our iPhone app Liquor Hub, which includes a barcode scanner to make the process even easier. |
2) You don't know what you want but you know you want something good. And you're in a hurry and don't want to read hundreds of different reviews. Our Top-20 lists are meant to help with that. We update almost every day so those lists will change - check back often! These top-20 lists give you the most accurate and up-to-date critical consensus available on the market. |
3) You're looking for a specific flavor or distillery. Our search capabilities are highly flexible. If you want something made with something exotic like "lychee," just type it in. You'll see a list of all the spirits we're aware of that feature lychee (or whatever). Want something from a boutique distillery. Type it in! You'll quickly see everything they produce that we're aware of—even the contracted labels that you might not otherwise be aware of. |
| Your reviews and thoughts help the site, so register and let your opinion be heard (the distillers are watching). Let us know if you can think of other ways to make the site more user-friendly by sending us your thoughts. |
Questions about Scoring |
| What goes into your "magic" overall rating? |
| Well... part of it really is statistical magic. But here are the criteria that we try to use. First, we take the annual average score from each rating institution and use that as a baseline... this varies a bit from year-to-year and in types of spirits. (For example, whiskey scores tend to be a little higher than flavored vodkas, so we try to correct for that.) Any given score from any given year is really just one person's (or a panel's) subjective opinion. What we try to do is show all of those opinions over time so that you can see the collective judgment, which we think is more useful than a stray score from a single source. (see our thoughts on "How can you put a numerical value on a person's opinion? That's just dumb!) We reward multiple submissions; we reward consistent scores over time; and older scores are gradually dropped off. Based upon all these assumptions, we make a combined score and break them into "tiers" that helps you very quickly sort the spirits how you want to. |
What is the Rabble Score? |
| The "rabble" is everyone who isn't an expert. It is the mass populace opinion about a given bottle and operates just like the familiar Amazon.com(R) ratings or other rating services. It gets updated by user reviews and is the collective's judgment. It factors equally with the professional ratings from (today) Wine Enthusiasts, Beverage Testing Institute, and San Fancisco World Spirits Competition. The yearly average of Rabble scoring will help determine its contribution to the combined score. So, in short, you Mr. and Ms. Joe Public, are rabble. Be proud of that. And rate away. |
What makes you guys think you know so much? |
| We barely think we know anything!! And that's exactly the point. Most websites merely give you one person's opinion on some day or another. We don't do that. We use the scores from multiple pros (where available) and balance that against the mass-populace opinion. That's the gap we're trying to fill: help you make truly informed purchasing decisions. |
Why did you choose the judges that you did? |
| We have a couple of different things we're looking for in reporting the large-scale judging competitions. We want them to have a history; they should be pretty transparent about their results and their methods; they need to test blind and be largely independent of influence (or at least as much as possible); and they should try to use experts in the industry (though occasionally we see that "expertise" is debatable as well). Even then, they're not the end-all-be-all of evaluation. They're really just a place to start. I don't believe or agree with every movie review I see either but it's a good place to start. |
Do you seriously expect me to believe you have every score from the judges here? |
| Nope... we do our best but we miss a few. Our first priority is to be current. We should have absolutely everything that has been rated since 2006. From there, we're working backwards as best we can. Right now, our plan is to go no further back than 2004. If you believe we've missed a score, please let us know. Additionally, we try and list every spirit in a major category but some of the more exotic stuff that we see less often—like shochu or pisco—are more likely to slip through the cracks. But we do our best. |
Why aren't these scores more consistent? |
| Weird, isn't it? Here's something getting big marks one year from one guy and the very next year getting something way lower. Part of it is merely taste: judges' tastes are variable and, occasionally, fickle. That's why we try to reward consistency. But the liquor itself could be a bit inconsistent: different water, different ingredients, new master distiller... who knows? Another reason we reward consistency. |
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Questions about Functionality |
| What's with these "lists" I'm supposed to make? |
| We want this to be the most useful site for liquor anywhere. These lists are for you to save and track any kind of bottle for any kind of reason. Have as many or as few as you wish. Make lists for your friends or shopping lists for your spouse. Make a Christmas wish list. It's really all up to you. If you have ideas on how to improve it, please let us know. |
How does this registry thing work? |
| The gift registry is a special use of a regular list. We suppose that there are times when people will want to "cross off" something they've bought off of one of your lists. It works just like a bridal registry. Ultimately, we hope to be able to work with liquor purveyors to help you fill the orders on your lists at the best possible price and availability. |
Where's the Android app? |
| We're very happy with our launch of the app for iPhone (Liquor Hub - check it out!) We'd like very much to release an Android version in the near future. In the meantime, we've tried to make a mobile-friendly site for Android users until the app is ready. |
Hey... I want to buy something. Where's my shopping cart and "buy now" link? |
| Sadly, we're not licensed to sell this stuff. However, we've very recently begun a program of working with retailers who can ship alcohol. This is strictly a referral/advertising service—we ourselves can't sell, assist in the sale, warrant the sale, or have anything to do with the sale—but we can at least help get a bottle by some assisted referrals. Does this affect our objective and neutral stance with respect to alcohol? No, not really. We want to help people get to good spirits that they enjoy drinking and referring seems a natural extension of that. Buying a whole case of $1,000 per bottle scotch is the same to us as buying a $10 bottle of vodka. We do, however, want to hear about your experience with anyone we refer you to, good or bad. We only want to work with awesome people. |
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Questions about Registering |
| Why would do I need to register for an account in order to make a list? |
| Well, obviously we need to sort people out so that we can make sure you see your lists and not someone else's. You can receive anybody's recommendations or lists without an account but if you want to interact with those lists, I'm afraid you need a user ID. |
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Questions about the Website |
| Why isn't [insert your favorite bottle here] on your site? |
| As of late 2011, we have over 4,500 different spirits listed in our database. That's a lot but it's nowhere near the total number of spirits in the world. There are a few main reasons why you wouldn't see something you're looking for. It could be it simply hasn't been submitted for judging in the competitions we follow. We try to avoid listing "unrated" spirits (though we will in some cases). If we become aware that a specific spirit is discontinued, then we'll delete it after a period of time. It could be we just flat-out missed something in error or it's so new we're not aware of it yet. Bottom line is this: we will always, always put something in our database if we know that users want to leave their thoughts about it. Go here to send a new bottle suggestion to the liquor geeks at Proof66 and we'll work on getting it added! |
Are you guys non-profit or is "Big Liquor" able to buy you off? |
| Well, we hate to admit it, but if Bacardi strolls up and offers us all Porsches to write nice things about their new line of flavored rums, we're probably going to do it. But in reality, Proof66 is immune to this problem precisely because we're using professional judges. While we can and do offer our own thoughts, it has no bearing on a particular spirit's ranking. The scoring we report on is objective, impartial, and--with the rabble score--built by you, the user. We are completely independent with no formal attachment to any particular organization or retailer. So far, no one's tried to buy us off. |
Your score is whack! [Insert your favorite bottle here] is way better! |
| It's America, baby! Disagree all you want. Do it by writing your own review and become part of the rabble score and then tell all your friends to register at the site and write their review. After years of reviewing these scores, we will say that many spirits that have an unusual ingredient or flavor profile will occasionally seem to suffer in front of critics, who can tend to be more traditional in their interpretations of flavors. You should always let your own palate decide. One other thing to remember is that simply receiving a rating from a judging institution we follow means they feel the spirit is good enough to recommend. There are many spirits where the judges quietly decline to offer any sort of rating whatsoever, so don't let a low score deceive you into thinking something is of inferior quality. |
I think you got something wrong... why don't you fix it? |
| We try really, really hard to be accurate. But even we catch mistakes every now and then. Please let us know and we'll fix it right away. |
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Questions from Distillers, Bottlers, Retailers, Distributors, and Others |
| Will you guys do a review of my spirit? |
| Yes, we certainly will. We like to think we have pretty sharp tastes after years of trying different things, even if we are "home schooled" in a sense. If we like your spirit, we'll write it up and post our thoughts online (we will simply decline to write anything at all if, for some reason, we don't end up liking what we tried). We have regular tastings of 15-30 people and will try to give your product as wide a hearing as possible. |
You have something totally wrong! |
| Please let us know. We try very hard to have the best information available on the internet and we actually want to show your spirit in its best possible light. That doesn't mean we'll ignore completely issues that might arise or have been mentioned in other publications but try in every case to work with producers to be as accurate as we can. Our goal is to help people explore and try new things. |
Why did you list someone else as the "producer" when I own the label? |
| Our practice is to try and mention those companies that are closest to the source of the spirit. In the case of American spirits, we will usually list the company noted by the Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. For tequila, that will usually mean the company associated with the NOM. Ownership and production are very thorny issues in the alcohol world and we try to clarify any tangle relationships in our notes section. If you have an issue, please let us know and we will try to work with you to be as accurate as possible. |
You're missing one of my scores... will you post it? |
| If you've submitted to one of the institutions we follow: San Francisco World Spirits Competition, Beverage Testing Institute, and/or Wine Enthusiasts, we'll get that officially listed as soon as we're aware of the score. If you've received an award from some other contest or reviewer, we often will note these as well in the notes section. While these won't affect the overall aggregate score we list, it will certainly help inform people who are looking you up for more information. |
My score changed and it went down... what happened? |
| Our scores are highly fluid and respond to the daily updates that we make. The aggregate score will be revised by more recent user review, more recent critical results, or prior results getting older. The "tier" is completely relative to the number of spirits we have listed in a category and your relative ranking. We are at pains to try and tell people that scores are mathematical certainties and that any score is a "recommend." If you want to improve your score, our system is weighted towards recent scores and consistent scores from the judges. |
I don't believe in the judges... they hate my style of liquor and have it in for the small guy. Why are you using them? |
| Mostly because we feel like the judge's scores are better indicators of quality than marketing programs, actors, and half-nude models frolicking on labels. The judges we use taste blind and we are convinced are some of the best in the industry at sincerely trying to get things right. We combine that with the user reviews - essentially word-of-mouth - to try and get as realistic a picture to the consumer as possible. In many ways, we're designed to help the little guy without a large marketing budget. If you'd like to talk more about this philosophy, please let us know; we're always looking for ways to improve and facilitate customer exploration. |
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