Draft #2

The weighted spreadsheet

I’m not a data and spreadsheets guy, but I do like to record my steps so I can learn from my mistakes and repeat what works.  For my second draft I created a spreadsheet to organize all ingredients and calculate proportions.

My first draft was equal parts of all 51 ingredients, (50 States and the District of Columbia).  That approach was passable, but too blunt. Where’s the art in that? I want a blend created around the characteristics I like most in whiskey.

So I proceeded to taste and rate each of the ingredients (hard, but rewarding work).

I assigned subjective ratings on a scale from 1-100 for Nose, Palette, Mouthfeel,  and Finish. 

• Nose & Mouthfeel ranged from Light to Full

• Palette assigned higher scores to the most pleasant flavor 

• Finish ranged from  short to long with some weight given to flavor quality

I created a weighted score that gave the most weight to Palette (43%) followed by Nose (30%) Finish (17%) and Mouthfeel (10%).  (Note: While I value mouthfeel I found that there isn’t as much variation in texture in American bourbons and ryes as in Scotch. Single Malts in this blend are a notable exception to that rule). 

I used the weighted score to create a proportion of the total blend volume for each whiskey.  The higher the score, the more of that whiskey I used. My scoring gave higher scores to fuller Nose and Mouthfeel and longer Finish so the resulting blend was biased toward outsized and complex flavors

This  2nd draft was completed on Tuesday, 4/27.  Time definitely helps meld the otherwise jangly flavors.