The official results of the Malt Maniacs Awards 2012 are now available. You can find them at the

Malt Maniac Awards Page

Foreign Correspondent Jacob Krodel (currently living in Korea) takes us on a visit to Blaue Maus, a whisky distillery in Bavaria.

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Ralfy Mitchell gives us an insight into a new distillery project in the Scottish Borders and interviews Professor David Thomson, the proprietor of Annandale Distillery.

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A report from Indian maniac Krishna Nukala about a visit to the distillery during the Malt Maniacs’ 15th anniversary trip to Scotland.

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Keith Wood investigates the strange phenomenon of memory flashbacks when nosing a whisky by travelling from the Yorkshire Dales to the limbic system of the human brain.

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We thought our 15th anniversary would be a good opportunity to give our manifesto a bit of a facelift. The essential things have not changed, but we think our guidelines have become visible be a bit more clearly now.

The Malt Maniacs would all like to congratulate Martin Diekmann on his recent marriage and wish the happy couple many great years together, but that’s not all, Martin has decided to retire from The Maniacs to pursue his business as an Independent Bottler with his new label “Maltbarn”.

Martin, we wish you great happiness and success with your new life, congratulations, The Maniacs.

We are delighted to announce that the Whisky Monitor now has surpassed the magic number of

50,000 Ratings

for over

15,700 Bottlings

 The results of one and a half decades of heavy dramming! Now let’s go for the 20,000 bottle mark…

It was 1997 when Johannes van den Heuvel, Craig Daniels and Louis Perlman created The Malt Maniacs, one of the first online communities of whisky anoraks which, over the last 15 years and under Johannes’ leadership, has grown beyond anyone’s initial belief. After all these years at the helm, Johannes has decided to call it a day and retire from his Maniacal status, although we dearly hope that his retirement may only be temporary.

It goes without saying that we wish Johannes well in his future, hopefully quieter endeavours.

So, just how do we think about replacing our leader and founder? After much soul searching, discussion and navel examining (well, not really) we have decided upon what most may consider the obvious choice; a Committee with nine willing volunteers, some ‘old’, some ‘new’ and some who were already there in 1997.

So we are pleased to announce our new MM Committee, the nine members in alphabetical order and their roles:

MM Social Media Maniac Benjamin Chen (Singapore)
MM Elder Statesman & Voice of Reason Craig Daniels (Australia)
MM Awards Co-ordinator Davin de Kergommeaux (Canada)
MM Events & Chief Diary Keeper Konstantin Grigoriadis (Greece)
MM Whisky Monitor Wizard Rich Howard (USA)
MM Website Editor Oliver Klimek (Germany)
MM E-Pistle Apostle Nabil Mailloux (Canada)
MM Master Maniac Serge Valentin (France)
MM Postmaster General Keith Wood (Germany)

Also in the MM news, our Charlie MacLean is starring in Ken Loach’s new movie The Angel’s Share that will be in competition in Cannes and Paul Dejong is back after a very short retirement from the Maniacs. Hurray!

Last but not least we are delighted to announce that June 2012 will see the largest ever real-life ‘in the flesh’ gathering of Malt Maniacs as no fewer than 26 (twenty six) MMs from all continents celebrate our “First 15 years” and look forward to the next 15. Where else could we possibly choose to do this but, you guessed it; Scotland!

Watch this space and in the meantime, Slàinte Mhath, Cheers, Santé, Skol, Prost!!!

– The MM Committee

On 12th April 2012 Johannes van den Heuvel, founder of the Malt Maniacs, published his decision to leave the group. His statement can be found at the bottom of the Malt Madness homepage.

For the remaining maniacs I can say that we all are sad to see Johannes go, especially as he is the person who started it all. We wish him all the very best for his personal future and we will stay on friendly terms with him.

Cheers,

Oliver Klimek