How is the bottle rating on Whiskybase calculated?

Every bottle on Whiskybase can receive ratings from members. These ratings are combined into one final score called the bottle rating. This score helps show how the community feels about a whisky.

To keep this score fair, the system uses a simple method that automatically removes extreme ratings before calculating the average. This prevents one very high or very low rating from changing the final score too much.

This article explains the full process in clear steps.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• 1. What is the bottle rating?
• 2. How the rating is calculated
• 3. Example with 10 ratings
• 4. What counts and what does not
• 5. Summary table

1. What is the bottle rating?

The bottle rating is the average score shown at the top of every whisky page.
It comes from the ratings given by members who tasted the whisky.

Each member can rate a whisky from 0 to 100.
A higher number means the whisky was enjoyed more.

2. How the rating is calculated

If a whisky has 4 or more public ratings, the system automatically removes:

• All ratings with the highest number
• All ratings with the lowest number

After removing these extreme values, the system adds the remaining ratings and divides the total by the number of ratings left. This gives the final bottle rating.

If a whisky has fewer than 4 public ratings, nothing is removed.
The rating is simply the average of all public ratings.

3. Example with 10 ratings

Do not worry if the steps below look detailed. The system does all of this automatically.

Here is an example showing how the calculation works when a whisky has many ratings.

Ratings:
92, 92, 91, 90, 90, 89, 88, 88, 87, 87

Step 1: System removes all highest ratings
Highest number: 92
Removed: 92, 92

Step 2: System removes all lowest ratings
Lowest number: 87
Removed: 87, 87

Step 3: Ratings used in the calculation
91, 90, 90, 89, 88, 88

Step 4: System adds these numbers
91 + 90 + 90 + 89 + 88 + 88 = 536

Step 5: The total amount is divided by 6
Final rating: 89.33

4. What counts and what does not

Here are the main rules that help keep the rating system fair and consistent.

• Public ratings are included in the calculation
• Private ratings are only visible to the member who added them and are not included
• The rating updates automatically every time a new public rating is added
• If a user is found giving false ratings on purpose, the Whiskybase team removes the user and all of their ratings

5. Summary table

If you ever want help understanding how a bottle rating was calculated or if something looks incorrect, feel free to contact our team.