The Malt Maniacs Manifesto – Our Guiding Principles

After the malt maniacs collective had emerged from the primeval swamp of the 1990′s, we soon realised that we needed some kind of ‘official document’ with a few words about our philosophy and our guiding principles. This document could act as a “touch stone” for ourselves and give our new team members (and those aspiring to become team members) a general idea of the privileges and responsibilities of a certified malt maniac.

Not unlike the ‘Communist Manifesto’ (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the first version of our manifesto focused mostly on principles and ideals. Those with overly flexible minds might see parallels between the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie from the Communist Manifesto, and the struggle of the Malt Maniacs and ‘the industry’.

The minds of those people are indeed ‘overly flexible’. Some of the malt maniacs may not always agree with everything that happens in the whisky industry (and feel free to voice their opinions when they feel like it) but the industry still produces the stuff that we love. So, we are strong supporters of the whisky industry – whether it’s in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, the USA, Japan, Taiwan, India, Australia or anywhere else.

The Malt Maniacs Manifesto

Introduction

The international ‘Malt Maniacs’ collective started out as an offshoot of the Malt Madness site in 1997.
Founding members Johannes van den Heuvel (Holland), Craig Daniels (Australia) and Louis Perlman (USA) felt that other whisky lovers might benefit from the sharing of other perspectives & opinions than just those of Johannes. During the early years our collective consisted exclusively of amateur malt whisky aficionados who enjoyed and discussed single malt whiskies in splendid isolation. So, as a team we started out 100% independent.

In recent years, a growing number of team members have been making (part of) their living from whisky. This effectively means that some of the maniacs might be considered more independent from the whisky industry than others. To keep the team as a whole as independent as possible, we keep providing a podium to all malt maniacs that want to share certain information and/or opinions. Our enjoyment and understanding of whisky is enhanced further by our discussions – and the sharing of our insights and opinions with each other and the rest of the (whisky) world. Our community is primarily web based; our thoughts, tasting notes and scores on thousands of whiskies are published via our websites www.maltmaniacs.org and www.whisky-monitor.com.

Mission Statement

Since the early, humble beginnings of the Malt Maniacs collective in 1997, our mission statement has evolved from the fairly selfish ‘helping each other find the best single malt whisky in the world’ to a more ‘missionary’ objective;

“The mission of Malt Maniacs is to expand and enhance the appreciation and understanding of malt whisky amongst ourselves and our audience. We try to achieve that goal by internal discussions and by publishing information and opinions about whisky (and whiskey) in the broadest sense of the word.” 

Some of the main ‘instruments’ to support that mission are our archive with hundreds of articles about whisk(e)y, the Malt Maniacs Monitor with scores on +/- 15,000 different whiskies (single malt whiskies, vatted malt whiskies, blended whiskies, etc.) and our annual international whisky competition: the Malt Maniacs Awards.

Principles

First and foremost, Malt Maniacs is about freedom of speech and respect for the opinions of others.  We may sometimes disagree and mock each other’s opinions, but we only feel free to do so because we know we are all serious about our passion. Sharing different perspectives about whisky enhances our own understanding. We encourage differences of opinion and nobody can speak for ‘all malt maniacs’. The opinions we publish are always personal by definition – they may or may not be shared by one or more other certified malt maniacs.  That is probably why a whisky lover once referred to us as “the beast that speaks with many voices”… 

The Malt Maniacs community (as a whole) is fiercely independent - our opinions are our own.  Our collective used to be 100% non-commercial and not-for-profit as well. After all, the group of maniacs was born in the 1990′s; a time when the internet was brand new and we were filled with dreams of how this new technology would change the world. Most websites that existed at the time were built by enthusiasts who were not in it to make money, but to share their passion, information and ideas with others. That’s why the founding members felt that the maniacs should remain completely independent of “the whisky industry”. One of the ways to guarantee our independence was avoiding any financial involvement with the aforementioned industry whatsoever. For almost a decade, all team members were complete amateurs (when it comes to whisky at least , but the lines started to blur a little when a few professional whisky writers joined our ranks around the year 2005.

These days, many members of the malt maniacs are actually involved with the whisky business itself.  Not long after the first (semi-) professionals joined our ranks, some of the amateurs among the maniacs started blurring the lines further from their end by accepting money and/or other perks in exchange for writing books, blogs and articles, hosting tasting sessions and masterclasses, etc. At the same time, more and more members of the maniacs became involved in the whisky trade or started their own whisky websites – some of which included advertisements or sponsored items. In the light of these developments – and considering that “influence” is a commodity as well – we democratically decided that (commercial) involvement with the whisky industry is no longer an objection to membership of our team. To help cover the costs of publication and hosting, we use ‘Google AdWords’ to display some modest
advertising on the Malt Maniacs site. Because we have no influence whatsoever on which advertisements are shown where and when, we felt that this would not damage our independence.

And, last but not least:
Malt Maniacs promotes the responsible consumption & enjoyment of whisky (and whiskey).

Membership

Membership of the ‘certified’ malt maniacs is by invitation and is predicated on the requirement that each member make regular contributions to www.maltmaniacs.org and/or our internal discussions. How does one acquire such a coveted invitation? That’s simple; just submit one or more E-pistles (articles) as a ‘foreign correspondent’ for publication in our E-zine. Once a year we discuss the E-pistles that were submitted by these foreign correspondents – and invite the most promising writer(s) to join our team at the end of the year.

Malt Maniacs is not a traditional club and does not have an elected executive. After an earlier ‘anarchist’s utopia‘ construction for Malt Maniacs failed miserably, founder Johannes van den Heuvel took charge again by popular demand in the role of ‘enlightened dictator’. Johannes acts as chief executive of Malt Maniacs and is responsible for concept, tone of voice and direction of the Malt Maniacs site & community. Johannes is also responsible for inviting new members to join – and revoking memberships if necessary.

There is a balance among countries represented so as to maintain an international organisation.  When we still enforced the maximum limit of 24 malt maniacs, the maximum number of malt maniacs from one country was three, but we now allow more. Malt Maniacs includes malt whisky lovers in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and North America among its members – and hopes to welcome members in South America one day.
An overview of our members (and some ex-members) can be found in the ‘locals’ section of this site.

Responsibilities

Malt Maniacs was established primarily to share freely with other malt aficionados and thus its primary focus is building a comprehensive alternate source of accurate and reliable information for beginners and knowledgeable malt aficionados alike. While individual malt maniacs may publish widely, it is strongly encouraged that information gained through association with Malt Maniacs be contributed to our audience and community (first) rather than other websites or publications. That information should reflect an independent perspective on whisky.

Several professional whisky writers are certified malt maniacs and contribute significantly to discussions.  However, scoring or rating whiskies is left strictly to the  ‘amateurs’ on the team. Working members of the whisky industry are not eligible for membership of Malt Maniacs. Membership of the ‘Keepers of the Quaich‘ society does not preclude membership of Malt Maniacs, as long as the ‘double agents’ remain independent of the industry.  Membership of other, independent whisky communities and organisations is heartily encouraged.

History

The community developed on the World Wide Web around the Malt Madness website (www.maltmadness.com) that founder Johannes van den Heuvel launched in 1995. Several visitors to the Malt Madness site started posting their comments on the site in 1997; the international ‘Malt Maniacs’ community gradually evolved from there.  When we had grown to 12 ‘certified’ members in 2002 we launched our own E-zine. A few years later the E-zine evolved into www.maltmaniacs.org and French maniac Serge Valentin added his WhiskyFun site to the mix. The individual whisky websites of other team members are not considered to be “malt maniacs” publications, but you can find links to those other whisky sites on the “locals” page.

Malt Maniacs Manifesto, Version 4.0 – May 1, 2011