Following a bumper year for entries, the IWSC has announced the medal winners for its 2022 spirits awards.
Over two weeks, 85 of the world’s leading spirit experts gathered to assess more than 4,000 spirits from over 90 countries, entered into 21 different categories.
Each spirit was tasted and awarded a score, translating for many entries into a Gold Outstanding, Gold, Silver or Bronze medal.
In total, more than 500 spirits were awarded the Gold Outstanding and Gold medals, with whiskies – including whiskies from Scotland, France, Ireland, America, Canada, Germany, India, Israel, Sweden, Taiwan and Japan – making up half the Gold medal haul.
Rum was another brown spirit category which performed well this year.
Total rum entries were up 23% versus the previous year, with more than 20 rums awarded the IWSC’s highest medal accolades – a Gold Outstanding or Gold medal.
Gin continued to dominate at the awards this year, accounting for more than 1,200 of total entries and taking home 15% of the year’s Gold Outstanding and Gold medals.
One New Zealand-made spirit – Coromandel Distilling Company’s Awildian Coromandel Spiced Gin – was awarded a Gold medal this year.
Twelve New Zealand spirits received Silver medals and 28 received Bronze.
To receive the IWSC’s highest accolade of a Gold Outstanding medal, drinks need to be awarded an overall score of 98 points.
This year, more than 120 spirits were awarded 98+ points, and of these, 14 received 99 points – the highest score in the competition.
Out of these top-scorers, five were Asian spirits – Baijiu and Shōchū.
Scotch whiskies took another of the five highest scores and the remaining four 99 pointers were all awarded to gins – two from Australia, one from Northern Ireland and one from Estonia.
The highest scoring medal winners are re-tasted to award IWSC’s spirit trophies which will be announced on March 23.
The results for all spirits categories are available now here.
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