In search of the world's best whiskies
This is the third time we have held the Best of the Best. But as Dominic Roskrow reports, this is the biggest and most ambitious attempt yet to find the world's best whiskies
Almost 60 great whiskies tasted blind in five countries by more than 100 tasters over four months... the Best of the Best event in 2005 can rightly claim to be the most ambitious whisky tasting ever held.
And the results reflect just how thoroughly we searched for the finest products from America, Ireland, Japan and Scotland... and what an exceptional standard of whisky enthusiasts have been able to enjoy over the last two years.
Best of the Best is held every two years, and is a tasting of the finest whiskies scored in Whisky Magazine over the previous 24 months. For the 2005 event, though, some significant changes were made to the event’s structure.
Only proprietary bottlings were admitted – a separate independent bottlers’ challenge is to be held later in the year – and we made sure that all the whiskies were widely available with the exception of the flight for fine and rare malts. Atasting in Ireland was added and the tasting was split in to two so that more flights could be added and more whiskies tasted. And instead of just compiling the scores from the regional tastings the whiskies were numbered down even further and a final tasting held in London for the first time.
Our judges were made up of distillery representatives, journalists, and retailers, all of whom gave up their time free. They were asked to provide comments , some of which appear on the following pages.
How it was done
Stage one
The top scoring whiskies scored by our tasters in the issues .....
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By Dominic Roskrow
Section : Whisky Awards
Page number : 18
