List of World Whisky Awards and Competitions

This is an exhaustive list of all world whisky competions and awards.

These competitions are held usually annually and most of the biggest players of the whisky industry are involved. And althought most of them are serious you shouldn't take any of them seriously not even Malt Maniacs Awards, perhaps the best one out there. whisky competitions

So why I don't believe in whisky Awards? My first dissapointment was a few years ago with Jim Murray's Whisky Bible, when I tasted several whiskies in a row with scores over 95 and I didn't enjoy any of them. Then, one year, Ballantine's 17 years old was named Whisky of the year and well, not having tasted it before I decided to give it a try. There is no need to say that although not bad for me it was quite far from being whisky of the year at all.

I didn't know much about the other tournaments, but when I had to fill the medals on this webpage I just realized every ~~fucking~~ whisky has a medal. In fact I decided to fill just Double Gold and Gold Medals, because the rest is plainly useless.

Finally I discovered Malt Maniacs and read their awesome website and knew how they do their Awards. The point that makes these crazy zealots the best and only serious award on the whisky world that I know is the fact that they taste the stuff completly blind. They split the whiskies in three categories: Daily, Premium and Ultra-premium. And they only give around ten gold medals to all the whiskies joining the award, around two hundred every year.

So my recomentation is go check them, grab the bottles or samples and make your own opinion. Everyone else is worthless.

If you know any serious competition that I may be missing please contact me.

Malt Maniacs Awards

Malt Maniacs Awards is a fierly independent whisky Awards where a team of twelve certified malt maniacs members taste blindly whiskies submited by distilleries and bottlers, with a limit of 3 per distillery.

There are heavy weights on the tasting panel with Serge Valentin and other great whisky bloggers.

The whiskies are scored between 0 and 100 and assigned a gold medal to those above 90 points which it is still a great rare honor. Those between 85 and 90 get a silver and those between 80 and 85 get a bronze medal. They also highlight daily drams whiskies, which it is a very nice thing as most of the gold medals are beyond a common budget.

Jim Murray's Whisky Bible Awards

From one of the best-selling whisky writer. Jim Murray's choosen whiskies usually have a boost in sales after nominations, which it is a great thing.

But sometimes I keep asking myself if is there any other deeper connection... not that they are not great whiskies, I enjoyed most of them myself... but I always have the feeling that there is something else.

A good resource for knowing what the stuff is about anyway. Just take it with some caution.

World Whiskies Awards

World Whisky Awards are organized by Whisky Magazine, and looking to the trophies year after year I suspect sponsored by Suntory.

World Whisky Awards has a shorter list of awards that highlight only the best of the best of world whiskies and Scotland regions.

Very interesting awards.

San Francisco World Spirits Competition

San Francisco World Spirits Competition has more medals that participants. When I browse the listing I can't stop asking if there is a single bottle that doesn't get a medal.

I just added here the Double Gold Medal and the Gold Medal.

2011
2010

International Wines and Spirits Competition

Another San Francisco based spirits competition and also very relaxed medal requirements.

Anything that doesn't get Gold Medal Best in Class isn't worth much of your time.