Malt Whisky Yearbook 2010

This Friday I received my copy of the Malt Whisky Yearbook 2010. This Is a yearly publication and I have also bought and read the 2009 edition. What would be the purpose of releasing a book with more or less the same content year after year? Let's see.
The base of the book is the comprehensive list of all Scottish distilleries, along with the articles of the distilleries are also tasting notes for all the scotch whiskies by Dominic Roskrow and David Stirk. There is also a list of all other malt distillers in the rest of the world. New this year is that the Japanese distillers got their own chapter.
Aside from this there are articles on whisky history, on the state of the industry and other up to date writings on what's going on. The back of the book are filled with statistics on the state of Scotch Whisky in the world, maps of the distillers and other trivia of which changes from year to year.
A welcome new addition this year was the In Focus articles that this year gave the various stages of the distillation process a thorough write up. Where they will go in the coming editions of the publication will be exciting to see.
There was also a great many portrait articles of different distillery manager, so here is the chance of looking into the heads behind your favorite whisky and getting to know their own favorite. There is still a lot of distillery managers to go around, so this addition will stand up to time and I really look forward to coming portraits.
All in all, Ingvar Ronde (Editor of the book) and the contributors are making a great job out of giving us this yearly update on the whisky world. I really enjoy all the well written articles and the comprehensive list of malt distilleries. The tasting notes gives a good clue on what to taste next, when I am looking for new whisky.