These days it seems any one can 'taste' whisky and award marks to reflect their experience of the spirit. Most are amateur, tasting for fun, which is of course their their prerogative. But without real experience at serious tasting, which is a skill that takes years to accumulate, they are more often polarisingly enthusiastic or fanatically influenced rather than critically fair.  

Some tasters are 'directly' professional, their consequent vested interests ensuring they do not compromise the paymaster, with predictably repetitive results. Others are 'indirectly' professional, their reputation used to sell books, magazines or on line articles.  Some times their spheres of influence cross over.

Astute, honest and perceptive tasters are sadly very few and far between in the whisky world. These reviews are from one of the very few that I genuinely respect:

www.whiskyfun.com