The voice of the people
The Icons of Whisky mark a step up for Whisky Magazine. Formerly known as the Whisky Academy and decided by an editorial panel, they are now decided by reader votes. Here we present the winners
Ask any celebrity which awards mean the most to them and they’ll tell you that it’s the ones decided by the general public. It’s all well and dandy
being chosen for an honour by your peers, they’ll say, but it’s the person who goes out and spends their own money investing in you or your product that really counts.
Either that or the award with a great big fat cheque accompanying it.
The decision to change the name of the Whisky Academy to the Icons of Whisky and open the categories up to public vote was not taken lightly. Indeed, the decision provoked much debate. What if the awards are dumbed down? What if the winners are the whisky world’s equivalent to Britney Spears? We should be so lucky.
Let the people decide, declared the democrats on the editorial panel. No, argued the reactionaries, good taste must prevail. Don’t let the public anywhere near.
In the end the panel selected the shortlists and put them on the website for voting. We think the results are both populist and of outstanding quality, our equivalent to Lord of the Rings if you like.
Some of the winners have been honoured before, and in one or two cases they have been chosen for the third year in a row. All that shows is that Whisky Magazine’s readers broadly agree with the editorial panel. And that works the other way round, too.
We strongly suspect that if we’d sat down and argued for long enough, most of these winners would have been selected anyway. A few things emerged from our voti.....
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By Dominic Roskrow
Section : Icons of Whisky
Page number : 16
