There was previously a published paper that did a hierarchical clustering of a bunch of whiskies: A Classification of Pure Malt Scotch Whiskies Lapoi

There was previously a published paper that did a hierarchical clustering of a bunch of whiskies: A Classification of Pure Malt Scotch Whiskies Lapointe and Legendre Appl. Statist. (1994) 43, No. 1, pp. 237-257 http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/jhb/whisky/lapointe/text.html http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/jhb/whisky/lapointe/text.html http://www.albany.edu/psychology/bcd/share/scotch_classification/lapointe&legendre_1994.pdf http://www.albany.edu/psychology/bcd/share/scotch_classifica... It would be interesting to compare their results with the OP.