Douglas Laing: Previous Explicit Dailuaine 18 YO
Picture, courtesy Douglas Laing
The Global Spirits Masters (GSM) competitors lately introduced the highest blended and single malt Scotch whiskies on the planet. Fourteen Scotch whiskies gained the coveted Grasp award. A further 76 whiskies gained gold medals. Compelling proof that the standard of Scotch whisky at the moment is at an all-time excessive.
The GSM is a global competitors that charges spirits throughout every main beverage class. Judging is split into 21 separate competitions to make sure every class is rated by specialist judges who’re thought-about specialists in that spirit. Judges are drawn from amongst journalists, retail patrons, bartenders and educators. The competitors awards gold and silver medals – with the highest spirits being designated as Grasp. The highest spirit in every class is designated as Style Grasp.
This 12 months 16 impartial, worldwide whisky specialists from throughout the business evaluated roughly 150 Scotch whiskies. The highest whiskies had been drawn from all 5 of Scotland’s whisky-producing areas. They represented a mixture of historic, well-known manufacturers, newly commissioned distilleries and extra obscure producers.
The highest tile of Style Grasp was awarded to Douglas Laing: Previous Explicit Dailuaine 18 YO, a single cask single malt Scotch whisky from Speyside. The expression is a part of the Previous Explicit Midnight Sequence.
Not surprisingly, single cask whisky expressions had been the standouts, successful nearly all of the Grasp medals awarded on this 12 months’s competitors. Single cask whisk(e)y expressions are more and more changing into the dominant medalists in spirit competitions around the globe. A phenomenon that displays each shopper curiosity in uncommon, collectible whiskies, in addition to the premiumization of whisky expressions by producers. It’s additionally a mirrored image of the exceptionally top quality discovered within the worldwide whisky business at the moment.
The largest winner of Grasp medals was the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. They took 5 Grasp medals.
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS) is a non-public membership membership that purchases particular person casks from over 170 completely different distilleries, which it then bottles and retails on to its members. The Society’s bottlings don’t formally establish the distillery on the label however as an alternative record a numeric code.
The integral digits (the numbers to the left of the decimal level) within the code designate the distillery, whereas the fractional digits (the numbers to the proper of the decimal level) point out the bottling. Just a little web sleuthing is normally adequate to establish what codes correspond to every distillery.
The highest winners from the SMWS had been the Single Cask Campbeltown Single Malt ‘93.133 – Apocalypse Cow’ (Glen Scotia); the Single Cask Speyside Single Malt ‘63.63 – Funky outdated bodega’ (Glentauchers); the Single Cask Islay Single Malt ‘53.324 – Lighthouse to Smokehouse’ (Caol Ila); the Single Cask Highlands & Islands Single Malt ‘112.55 – The satan in pink silky pajamas’ (Loch Lomond, Inchmurrin) and the Cask Energy Highlands & Islands Single Malt ‘94.10 – The light glowing beast from the east’ (Previous Fettercairn).
The Glasgow Distillery Firm takes its identify from one in every of Glasgow’s historic distilleries. The modern distillery, nonetheless, was based in 2014. It represented the primary new distillery throughout the Glasgow metropolis limits in additional than a century.
The distillery gained two Grasp awards for his or her: Glasgow Single Malt Scotch Whisky – Sauternes Cask End and Glasgow 1770 Single Malt Scotch Whisky – Triple Distilled. Additionally successful Grasp medals had been The Glenturret, 10 YO Peat Smoked 2021 Launch and Aerstone Land Cask from William Grant & Sons.
Considered one of Scotland’s latest distilleries, the Ardgowan Distillery Firm, gained a Grasp award for its Clydebuilt Shipwright. This expression is a blended malt that retails for lower than $100. Ardgowan commenced operations in 2020. It’s positioned in Inverclyde simply west of Glasgow.
Additionally successful a Grasp award was MacDuff Worldwide, Lauder’s 15 YO, Blended Scotch Whisky. MacDuff is an impartial, Glasgow-based bottler that was f0unded in 1992. It’s finest identified for its Islay Mist, a blended whisky consisting of a mixture of Laphroaig with Speyside malts and grain whisky that dates again to the Twenties.
Final however definitely not least was Kilchoman Distillery, Kilchoman Sanaig, which additionally gained a Grasp award. Sanaig is a peated Islay whisky that’s matured in a mixture of ex-bourbon and Oloroso Sherry casks.
Melita Kiely, editor of The Spirits Enterprise and chair of The World Spirits Masters competitors famous:
What I like about this 12 months’s medal-winning entries is that they provide shoppers room to experiment and take a look at one thing new, with out asking them to pay a fortune. There are some implausible Scotch whiskies on this 12 months’s outcomes to go well with a variety of taste preferences and worth factors. I’d gladly suggest any expression listed right here.
This 12 months’s GSM Scotch whisky judging highlighted a variety of superlative Scotch whiskies. Don’t restrict your exploration to only the Grasp award winners. There are many excellent whiskies value making an attempt among the many gold medalists too! See the GSM website for an entire itemizing of all the highest medalists from the 2022 competitors.
Sláinte
