28 February 2010 Ruben * Whisky News

World Whisky Awards 2010

The results of this year’s WWA10 have been announced:

Best Single Malt Whisky: Ardbeg Corryvreckan
Best Blended Whisky: Hibiki 21 Years Old
Best Blended Malt Whisky: Taketsuru 21 Years Old
Best American Whiskey: Rittenhouse Straight Rye 100 proof
Best Whisky Liqueur: Wild Turkey American Honey
Best Grain Whisky: Greenore 15 Years Old
Best New Release: Parker’s Heritage Collection Golden Anniversary

This year’s winners are probably less common than in previous editions. Rittenhouse is a rye whiskey, Greenore 15yo normally doesn’t get high scores (apart from Bert Bruyneel who gives it a consistently high score) and most of the American whiskeys can be pretty hard to find in Europe anyway.

Is Ardbeg Corryvreckan really the best single malt whisky of last year? I’m afraid not (at least not for me), but bear in mind that the World Whisky Awards only score high yield releases with a big focus on official bottlings. It would have been nice to publish a list of all the entries to get a better idea of the competition.

8Comments

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1

gal on 28 February 2010 at 17:02

Ruben
i do think that most of us can get OB bottling, its very hard ti get independant bottling in most places so more weight and importance should be given to OB even if others are even better.

G.
2

Bert B. on 28 February 2010 at 18:24

I indeed always give high rates to the Greenores when tasted blind in the Malt Maniacs Awards … just seem to like them ;-). Re-tastings only confirm this, so this isn’t new to me ;-).
3

Mark Gillespie on 28 February 2010 at 22:41

The Wild Turkey American Honey isn’t a rye…just to clarify. It’s a bourbon-based liqueur with honey added in. By the way, I agree with Bert on Greenore! 😉

Disclosure: I was one of the judges for the blind tasting rounds of the WWA (and do not have a list of entries to compare code numbers to).
4

Ruben on 28 February 2010 at 23:34

Thanks for correcting this Mark. Apparently Wild Turkey has a rye version but the standard version is a bourbon, and their liqueur is based on that. Sorry for the confusion.
I understand you don’t have a complete list of entries, but do you have an idea of the number of contestants for each category? There are sooo many categories that I suspect some have just a handful of entries. In that case, winning “best ___ of the year” is not a huge achievement.
5

Tim F on 1 March 2010 at 15:30

I believe only OB whiskies are judged at the WWA – it’s not a case of lesser weight given to IBs, it’s just that the competition is only open to distillery bottlings.
6

Maie on 1 March 2010 at 15:41

Hi guys

there are two competitions : one for official bottlings and one for independant bottlings! you can’t compare both. as i was only a judge for the final round i just tasted the category winners. I must admit that on this blind tasting I scored the Ardbeg also 9 points out of 10. Is that because of the line up, is it just a good whisky when tasted blind and not be influenced by the name Ardbeg or was it just a look into Annabels eyes on my table? I don’t know. And Ruben, most of the categories have a lot of contestants. It is for my more then winning the best in class” Irish whiskey peated no age statement” at IWSC, if you see what i mean

a+

M

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