2016, quite simply, has been a banner year for The Whiskey Wash and we have you, our readers, to thank for it.
What started as a hobby blog back in October of 2013 was, at the time, a pure passion project on my part. Combining my love of whiskey with being a journalist and tech entrepreneur, I came to quickly realize we had a chance to create something unique, something which combined quality writing from a range of writers with love for a brown spirit known the world over in its various forms.
As I reflect on 2016 and look at what we’ve accomplished, the data points are just simply staggering to consider. For this year alone, for example, we’ve pushed well north of 3.1 million page views and 1.5 million unique readers. Consider, by comparison, that for 2015 we had a little over 640,000 page views and 330,000 unique readers. Simply put, that is a record smashing over 380% page views and over 348% unique users growth! This has allowed us to regularly rank as one of the largest web-based whiskey publications online.
Looking at our social media outlets, we’ve seen super strong growth as well in our Facebook (over 71,000), Instagram (over 10,600) and Twitter (over 3,100) followers in 2016. Combined our overall social reach is off the charts, and continues to grow at a comfortable pace month over month.
On the content writing side of our operation, we now work with close to 15 reviewers, who this year pumped out over 360 reviews, and a more general writing team of again close to 15 amazing individuals spread out across the US and beyond. We also established a dedicated team in Kentucky focused on providing bourbon and Tennessee whiskey coverage, and as part of our overall writer expansion we brought on board some very highly regarded writers in the whiskey world, including Chuck Cowdery, Lew Bryson and Charles Maclean. All together we’ve published over 2,200 articles, reviews, interviews, news stories and more.
All of the hard work the writers put into providing amazing articles for our readers did not go unnoticed by the industry either. We were the recipient, for example, of the Whisky Blog of the Year award from the highly regarded International Whisky Competition. We are also increasingly being linked to and mentioned by other media, both whiskey and general, as outlets become aware of our presence and my team of dedicated co-founders works from their respective areas to build out our brand.
When I decided a little over two years to transform The Whiskey Wash from a hobby blog to a full fledged whiskey lifestyle site, I wasn’t sure where things would evolve to frankly. Being a media start up as we are I can tell you firsthand the failure rate is high for a range of reasons. When one considers how this site has evolved so quickly though, I feel like we have a super bright future on the horizon for 2017, with a number of great plans in the works I’ll be sharing more on in the coming months.
For now, I personally want to thank you, our awesome readers, for making all of this possible. It is your ever increasing interest in our content which pushes me and my team each day to raise the standards of what we do and work to provide what we feel is one of the top media authorities out there now on the subject of whisk(e)y. That being said, it is humbling to me to think we’ve come this far this fast, and I always know fortunes can change on a dime. For me, I believe with everything in me we will be one of those success stories, driven by your belief in the way we write and present our articles to you.
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To you and yours I wish you a Happy New Year and a great 2017 – we will continue to be here, tracking the whiskey trends, writing the reviews, calling BS on the industry when needed and keeping you, our valued readers, at the forefront of everything we do.
Nino Marchetti
Founder & Editor-in-Chief, The Whiskey Wash
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