Affiliate disclosure.

Gincave is an independent editorial publication and the only revenue it generates comes from affiliate links. This page explains how that works in plain terms, in line with the requirements of the FTC, the UK CAP Code, and the EU's transparency expectations under the UCPD and DSA.

What "affiliate link" means

Some links to merchants on this site (including, but not limited to, Master of Malt, The Whisky Exchange, Amazon, and Reservebar) carry a tracking parameter that identifies traffic as having come from Gincave. If you click such a link and then buy something at that merchant, Gincave receives a small commission. The price you pay is identical to what you would pay clicking through any other link. You are not subsidising the commission.

Affiliate links are clearly marked on this site, either with a small diamond (◆) and a note at the top of the article, with a banner near the end of the article, or with explicit text at the link itself ("affiliate link" or "we earn a small commission").

How this affects what gets reviewed

It doesn't, materially. The site reviews the bottles that are worth reviewing, regardless of whether a particular merchant has an affiliate program. Bottles that score poorly are still reviewed honestly. Bottles from distillers without an affiliate path are still covered. The affiliate revenue is a way of making the writing sustainable, not a filter on what gets written.

That said, there is one structural bias worth being honest about: when recommending where to buy a bottle, Gincave will preferentially link to merchants that have an affiliate relationship with the site, provided they are merchants we'd buy from ourselves. If a bottle is genuinely better priced or only available somewhere without an affiliate link, we'll still tell you so.

Sample bottles

Distillers occasionally send sample bottles for review. These are always identified in the review with a note that the bottle was a sample, and they have no effect on the scoring approach. A weak sample bottle gets a weak review.

Sponsored content

Gincave does not currently publish sponsored content of any kind. Should that ever change, sponsored articles will be clearly labelled as such at the top of the page, and will be visually distinguishable from editorial content.

Cookies and tracking

The merchants linked from Gincave will set their own cookies when you click through. Gincave itself uses minimal analytics (page views, no personal identification) and does not sell data to anyone.

Questions

If you spot something that looks like it might be undisclosed commercial content, please contact us through the contact form. Editorial honesty is the only thing this site is selling, in a sense, so we take any concerns about it seriously.