The Malt Advocate Whisky Awards exist to recognize excellence in the world of whisky. Now in their sixteenth year, these awards are the oldest and longest-running annual whisky awards program. They honor the world’s greatest whiskies and distilleries, and the individuals who make and promote them.
The only requirement: to be eligible for this year’s awards, products must have been sold in the U.S. during the 2009 calendar year. Please keep this in mind when reading about our award winners.
As I mentioned in a previous post, for the first time ever, we will be announcing our awards here, starting tomorrow, before they are eventually published in Malt Advocate magazine. You can read about the schedule of the awards, and our reasoning for publishing the awards via this blog, here. Each day, from February 1st-11th, I will post up the award at 0700 Eastern Time.
I would like to ask that, if you have any general questions about the contest itself, you use this posting to ask your questions. When I post up each award category and winner, let’s focus our comments on the actual whisky, distillery, etc., receiving the award. Thanks.
As I am not a reader of “Malt Advocate” (yet), I would like to know if this is a sort of contest where distilleries have to sumbit samples, or do the awards just reflect your opinons on all whiskies you have tasted in that year?
Obviously, we can’t give an award to a whisky that I have not tasted. I get review samples of most whiskies that are released in the U.S. But, we do send an email out to the companies and let them know about the awards and that if they haven’t sent a review sample that year and would like their whisky considered, they should send a sample. We also sometimes request samples that we want to consider but don’t have product.
We never have, and never will, charge a fee or profit from the awards. It’s just our way of trying to recognize the products and people who did great things in a given year.
May the best ma..err whisky win!!
Is it coincidence or conspiracy that both blend and single malt of the year are heavy on peat, by nature? Hmmm………..
Personally, I like both heavy/bold/robust peat and sherry Scotch at higher strengths. You know, something with a pop and a pow. Big, huge flavor. Con huevos.
Save that well balanced, 40 proof stuff for……………later.
Excellent choices, John.