Yes. You can joke and say “Who would turn down whiskey?” but this is a valid question. Some people review only things that they buy and some people review only things that are sent to them. While we actually purchase most of the whisk(e)y that we review it is out of necessity more than anything else. Plus, we’re usually buying the stuff anyway. 😉
For those who read our blog, we don’t treat the whisk(e)y any different regardless of whether it was sent to us or purchased by us. The only difference is that we disclose in the review if the sample was sent to us. We usually do reviews periodically (and hopefully with some regularity) based on what’s in our liquor cabinets at any given moment. For samples sent to us we trying to have a pretty short turnaround time out of respect for the company that sends it to us. This is usually because the samples tend to coincide with a seasonal promotion, new release, etc that may be time sensitive.
In the past we’ve received generosity in the form of review samples from Pernod Ricard, Cooley, Charbay, and several others. If you have something you would like us to review then contact either Matt or myself through email.
Your Whisk(e)y Apostles,
Richard & Matt