Celebrating our 10 Year Maltiversary

Editor’s Note: Ten years ago on July 1st, The Malt Impostor launched its first post with the kind of fanfare normally reserved for the obituary for a small town car salesman. But this past July 1st, its founders allowed our tenth maltiversary slip by unheralded, as all three of them forgot were away on luxurious vacations (not together, thus the plural of “vacation”). As Bill sipped Mai Tais on a private beach in the Dutch Antilles, as Stephen smoked Cohibas on a rooftop terrace in Habana, and as John carefully avoided overeating by having a salad every day for lunch on his all-inclusive Mediterranean cruise, they kept in constant communication with each other, plotting the belated birthday celebration they would hold for their weighty albatross ongoing labor of love. In what follows, each member of this team of co-conspirators offers his own individual birthday wishes in honor of this, their Groucho-bespectacled baby.

 

Bill: Ten Years After our first post! The 10-year anniversary gift is aluminum, which will be perfect for fashioning an all-new set of tinfoil hats for the crew! And by ‘the crew,’ I don’t mean us, I mean our adorable ferrets and otters.

I’d like to say that the best part of the past ten years was deepening the bonds of friendship between John, Stephen, and me, and meeting and enjoying the company of so many wonderful people in the industry and other fans of the water of life. Yes, I would like to say that, but nah, it’s been the whiskies. And the ferrets and the otters.

 

Stephen: We often say that we really do have the best hobby. And we say that because it’s true. We have devoted time consistently to this fun enterprise, and we’re proud of the resulting site and the singular tasting notes we produce. As Bill says, our friendship, and the occasion to deepen it in various ways, is the greatest payoff we receive for our efforts. But we have also thoroughly enjoyed playing around on the margins of the whisky industry, because without exception the people in that industry are warm, welcoming, and great fun. We hope that readers derive pleasure and laughter—and perhaps even some helpful information—from our site, but the fact of the matter is that we really do it for ourselves. And we’ve had a blast doing it.

 

John: “I heartily endorse this event or product.“