One Million hits and Counting!

This blog has recently hit the one million hits mark.  Look at the site counter half way down the page on the right.  I know you are shocked.  So am I.

I started this blog three years ago out of frustration with not being able to find reliable whisky tastings notes that delivered the straight goods.  Ahh, the hedonistic thoughts and ambitions I have seem to be shared by people around the world.

Now you may be thinking why am I trumpeting this fact?  "Jason, leave the trumpeting to Miles Davis," you say.

I will try to hit a few high notes, maybe not as elegantly as Miles, but please take a listen for a moment.

I believe the high traffic is a testament to how whisky seems to be of interest to a lot of people around the world.  Check out the pie chart of readers from around the world:

55.2% of the readers are from the United States.  Within the US, the top three states that tune in are:  California, New York and Texas.

11.4% of readers are to be found in Canada.

5.1% of visitors are in the UK, who are probably shaking their head at what they read and muttering to themselves: What a stupid "git" that Debly is.

Crikey! 3.6% of web traffic is from Australia.

The kiwis from New Zealand like American bourbon, and so I receive a lot of visits and email from them.

And then there is the rest of the world!  Too many countries to list, but I can tell you India ranks the next highest.  Germany, Sweden Finland, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Turkey and Greece are growing too.

So, what do I take away from this?

I need to post more whisky reviews!  People want more info!

What can you take away from this?  You need to post more comments so that readers get your point of view also.  Well, you have actually been doing a pretty good job.  At the time of this post there were 2,010 comments.  Thanks.  Keep it up.  Whisky and your thoughts are important!

I always admired the American philosopher William James.  Why?  When he was at Harvard and chairman of the philosophy department, he had great influence as to the hiring of other professors.  He did something that exemplifies what university should be about.  He purposely hired professors who held views that were very different or even strenuously opposed to his own.  (It has been argued that others in similar academic positions of power were not as enlightened as James.  For example, I have heard compelling arguments that erroneous Freudian views would have been disposed much sooner if Freudian academics had . . . well not hired more Freudian academics.)

Similarly, I want to publish all comments (except for those ones about little blue pills and money making gambling schemes - I keep those for me).  Especially if those comments criticize or correct my errors as perceived by the critic.  Everyone benefits from this healthy discourse, regardless of how hedonistic the subject matter may be.

I suppose I have not threaded together notes as elegantly as Miles has done in his great career.  So, take a listen to the master in one of his more obscure recordings (1958 record, issued in France), but nevertheless great composition:



Cheers!


Jason Debly

P.S.  Next week I will list some holiday gift suggestions of the whisky kind.

Copyright © Jason Debly, 2009-2012. All rights reserved. Any and all use is prohibited without permission.   Note:  All images appearing in this article are for the purposes of nostalgia, education and entertainment.  Moreover, all images used are considered by the author to be significant in illustrating the subject matter, facilitating artistic/critical commentary, as it provides an immediate relevance to the reader more capably than the textual description.