How the whisky field is built.

The nine axes.

Sweetness — Perceived sweet aromas and taste, not measured sugar. The midpoint means: Clearly honeyed or caramel-like. The scale runs from “Little sweetness” at 0 to “Very sweet” at 100.

Body — Texture and weight, not alcohol strength. The midpoint means: Rounded, medium weight. The scale runs from “Light-bodied” at 0 to “Full-bodied” at 100.

Smoke — Perceived smoke; production peat status is a separate fact. The midpoint means: Clear smoke, not dominant. The scale runs from “Little smoke” at 0 to “Smoke-led” at 100.

Fresh fruit — Fresh orchard, citrus, stone and tropical fruit impressions. The midpoint means: Clear apple, citrus or stone fruit. The scale runs from “Little fresh fruit” at 0 to “Fruit-led” at 100.

Dried fruit — Dried and concentrated fruit, separate from fresh fruit. The midpoint means: Clear raisin, fig or date. The scale runs from “Little dried fruit” at 0 to “Dried-fruit-led” at 100.

Floral — Flower and blossom character; not an alias for all light aromas. The midpoint means: Clearly blossom-like. The scale runs from “Little blossom” at 0 to “Blossom-led” at 100.

Spice — Aromatic spice, not ethanol burn. The midpoint means: Clear pepper, ginger or baking spice. The scale runs from “Gentle spice” at 0 to “Spice-led” at 100.

Oak — Woody, toasted and drying impressions; can coexist with sweetness. The midpoint means: Clear oak, toast or tannin. The scale runs from “Little oak” at 0 to “Oak-led” at 100.

Malt / cereal — Perceived grain character, not a mash-bill percentage. The midpoint means: Clear biscuit, bread or cereal. The scale runs from “Little grain” at 0 to “Grain-led” at 100.

Production facts drive the derivation.

Derived positions use bottle-specific production inputs—such as cask and finish, age or producer-stated NAS, ABV, peat status and reported peat level, mash style, char, still style and distillation method. Published tasting notes help define the provisional anchors; they are not treated as in-house tastings. Higher scores are never inherently better.

Anchors are provisional.

The current set contains 32 anchors with status anchor — provisional (consensus-derived). They are fixed calibration points derived from published production facts and tasting descriptions. Pairwise enthusiast review or Phil’s confirmation can promote or dispute an ordering; disputes are handled in a later calibration release.

Missing evidence is suppressed.

Every axis is tagged per bottle. A bottle-specific derivation may support comparisons and prose. A category default may help calculate distance, but it never produces a comparison sentence or key-difference highlight. On a bottle fingerprint, a default-tagged axis appears as not enough data rather than as a coordinate.

Verification vocabulary.

Verified

Supported by the producer or an exact-market primary source.

Derived

Calculated transparently from verified or reported production inputs.

Reported

Widely documented by a credible specialist when the producer does not publish the value.

Not stated

The source was checked and does not disclose the value; no absence is inferred.

How neighbors are chosen.

Close matches use all eligible axes and must pass fixed flavor-gap limits: normalized average distance ≤ 0.20, smoke gap ≤ 25, body gap ≤ 30, and other individual gaps ≤ 35 points. We show fewer results rather than force a match. Whisky and cocktail scores are separate systems and are not directly interchangeable.