Tasting as an exercise to determine product quality is a galaxy apart from the social consumption of whatever beverage is being judged. Your preferred brand is a little like an old friend: there’s a familiarity which allows you to turn a blind eye to the defects and foibles which those who don’t know him as well would be quick to focus on. Aspects of his personality which elsewhere might cause offence, you choose to dismiss as features which make him the entertaining and loyal friend with whom you have had many hours of good company.
Judgement on the other hand is more like the kind of interviewing process the CIA might undertake in vetting a candidate for a vital secret mission: every aspect of the individual must be stress-tested, weaknesses measured against strengths, capabilities balanced against shortcomings, competences against blind-spots. Once the exercise has been completed and the agent has been sent out into the cold, there’s no going back. A single error of judgement can carry disproportionate consequences.
These analogies are particularly true when it comes to judging spirits. The biggest brands sell exponentially more than anything in the world of wine. They are entered into very few competitions because the commercial consequences of a poor judging decision can be significant. Unlike wine, for example, where bottle variation is inherent in the nature of the product, spirits producers are expected to maintain an unimpeachable level of consistency, even in categories where the raw materials can be subject to massive variation: a consumer of small-batch aged malt whisky still expects the 21 year old he purchased last week to taste exactly the same as the bottle he bought last year. He doesn’t care about what the weather was like when the grain was harvested more than two decades previously, or that the distiller who transformed the mash into new make spirit died long before the whisky was drawn from cask and went to bottle.
For consumers, the value of a competition like the Trophy Spirits Show, brought to you by Investec, lies in the quality of the judges and the rigour of the judging methodology. Every product is judged blind, label out of sight, ensuring that the awards are an absolute measure of quality, existing independently from brand hype and marketing message. If you are concerned about the perfection of what is in the bottle, the knowledge that it has been subjected to the same process of interrogation as a prospective CIA agent is a guarantee not easily available in the world of spirits brands.
Indirectly, it is also a measure of the confidence the producers have in what they have made, and their faith in the judging process. The quiet certainty that what they have submitted to the judging panels of the Trophy Spirits Show is worthy of the scrutiny to which it has been subjected is a different, but equally important endorsement.
Investec Trophy for Best Malt Whisky: Benriach Smoke Season Single Malt Scotch Whisky – Double Cask Matured
Investec Trophy for Best Whisky of Show: Benriach Smoke Season Single Malt Scotch Whisky – Double Cask Matured
Investec Trophy for Best Blended Whisky: Johnnie Walker Black Label Blended Scotch Whisky Aged 12 Years
Investec Trophy for Best Distilled Gin: Emperor Gin
Investec Trophy for Best Liqueur of Show: Wilderer Rogue Apple Pie Moonshine
Investec Trophy for Best London Gin: Ginologist Handcrafted Small Batch London Dry Gin
Riedel Trophy for Best Gin of Show: Ginologist Handcrafted Small Batch London Dry Gin
Investec Trophy for Best Single Pot Still Whiskey: Yellow Spot Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey Aged 12 Years
Investec Trophy for Best Tequila: Don Julio 1942 Tequila Anejo
Vinolok Trophy for Best Premium Spirit: Don Julio 1942 Tequila Anejo
Trophy for Best Apéritif: Dullstroom Lemonlicious LemonGinCello
Trophy for Best Flavoured Gin: Inverroche Verdant Gin
Trophy for Best Grappa: Wilderer Pinotage Grappa
Trophy for Best Pot-distilled Brandy: Avante Founders’ Fifteen Cape Brandy
Investec Trophy for Best Brandy of Show: Avante Founders’ Fifteen Cape Brandy
Trophy for Best Vodka of Show: Circa 1430 Vodka
