The Importance of Negative Reviews

"If you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything" is a maxim most of us heard repeatedly while growing up. And while it might be a useful way to make children think before they speak, it becomes more complicated as we get older.

All good? Some? None? Well, probably not the North Port

Unless you're lucky enough to be fantastically wealthy, most adults have limited resources and are
regularly forced to make all sorts of decisions about how to allocate them. These decisions ultimately all come down to value - what am I getting for what this costs?

The problem in the spirits community is that we have more cheerleaders than genuine critics. With rare exceptions, on blogs and social media there is nearly always someone willing to chime up and speak favorably when someone asks "Is this any good?" It's reached the point where certain expressions are nearly unimpeachable, whether that's Four Roses Single Barrel bourbon, Aberlour A'Bunadh, or in certain parts of the rum community nearly anything distilled from sugarcane. While that's perfectly fine if people are primarily looking for validation, it's less useful if the question is earnestly asked to decide whether to spend money on something they may or may not like.

I think there are a number of factors at play. One is that people are often looking for and want to give validation. You spent your hard-earned money and want to believe that it was worth parting with those precious dollars/euros/pounds/yen/etc. With rare exceptions, no one likes to feel that they bought a stinker. And humans are nothing if not good at rationalization. Telling other people that they bought something good reinforces our own sense that we have made good decisions.

This tendency can become self-reinforcing as anyone with a contrary negative opinion feels disinclined to pipe up either because they implicitly feels bad about yucking everyone else's yum or explicitly as dissenters are shouted down. Further reinforcing this tendency is the fact that there is no accountability - few are going to keep track of everyone who chimed in and if they come back to report that something wasn't good (which, given how heavily many of us stock up, may be months or years after the initial purchase), it can always be claimed that tastes simply haven't aligned or that an expression has changed since they last tasted it.

Negative reviews are an important way to push back against these tendencies. Even when you can't sway anyone's opinion, negative reviews are still worthwhile simply to normalize dissent. No one reviewer can say that a particular expression is definitively bad or a poor value, but being willing to say "This wasn't worth the money I spent on it" or "This doesn't fit with my tastes" are both critical pieces of information when drinkers are trying to decide how to spend their own money. I can't condone telling someone else that they're wrong in enjoying what's in their glass, but when someone is asking whether they should buy a whisky that I didn't like or thought was a poor value, you can bet that I'll speak up. And I wish more people would do the same.