..Category Archives: Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival

Independent Bottler's Challenge Winners 2019

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Independent Bottlers Challenges - 2019 Winners

Each year, we have 2 challenges for independent bottlers at the Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival - one for Speyside whiskies, and one for the Rest of Whisky. The aim? To see which bottling visitors to the festival think is the best! How? By letting our festival guests be the judges! We run these challenges every year, and guests taste the whiskies blind, so they don't know which they are until after they've voted. That way, it's kept fair and without any unfair judgement being made before the whiskies have even been tasted!

Our 2019 Winners are...

Rest of Whisky
1st Place - That Boutique-y Whisky Company Scottish-Japanese 21 Years Old
2nd Place - That Boutique-y Whisky Company Cotswolds 3 Years Old

 

Speyside
1st Place - Adelphi Breath of Speyside 11 Years Old
2nd Place - The Single Cask Glen Moray 10 Years Old

We'd like to thank everyone who took part in judging, and the Independent Bottler's who entered their whiskies.  A massive well done to That Boutique-y Whisky Company on their double-win, and to The Single Cask who've won 2nd place on their first time entering! As for Adelphi, we're starting to lose count of how many trophies they've won over the years from the challenges!

Wonder who will win in 2020?! Only one way to make sure your vote counts - purchase tickets when they're released next year and join in!

What is the Best Single Malt to Go with a Bacon Roll?

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Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival 2018 Wrap-up #2

Over a dozen festivals or more we at The Whisky Shop Dufftown, courtesy of our guests at Spirit of Speyside Whisky festival, have been trying to answer this question which is one of the greatest of all questions.  Each year we pitch 3 new contenders against the reigning champion from the previous festival to see which one wins and goes forward to the next contest.

The winner is decided upon by guests attending our bacon roll and whisky tasting who vote for their favourite in a blind tasting.  This is unsmoked bacon and no sauce.  This is science!

We have collated the votes from all of the tastings we held.  Counted them.  Checked them again.  And ensured there was no outside influence.

We can now formally announce the results:

Joint 3rd - Macallan 12 Years Old Fine Oak (1) & Glen Moray 15 Years Old (4)

Joint 1st - Benriach 10 Years Old Classic (2) & Glenrothes Vintage Reserve (3)

  • The number in brackets denotes the place of the whisky in the order of the tasting.

There was just 3 votes separating the 4 whiskies involved!  We will take that to mean we are getting better and better at choosing whiskies for the pairing.

As Glenrothes Vintage Reserve has been discontinued we are declaring the overall winner which will go forward to the next challenge to be Benriach 10 Years Old Classic.

Glenrothes Vintage Reserve and Glen Moray 15 Years Old were the joint winners from the last festival.

98 people took part this year and we thank them for their kind support.

What is the Best Single Malt to Go with Haggis?

This entry was posted in Blog, Other Whisky News, Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival and tagged , , , , , on by .

Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival 2018 Wrap-up #1

Over a dozen festivals we at The Whisky Shop Dufftown, courtesy of our guests at Spirit of Speyside Whisky festival, have been trying to answer this life-affirming question.  Each year we pitch 3 new contenders against the reigning champion from the previous festival to see which one wins and goes forward to the next contest.

Haggis, neeps and tatties

The winner is decided upon by guests attending our haggis and whisky tasting who vote for their favourite in a blind tasting.  We have collated the votes from all of the tastings we held.  Counted them.  Checked them again.  And ensured there was no outside influence.

We can now formally announce the results:

4th - Ben Nevis 10 Years Old (4)

3rd - Glenfarclas 10 Years Old (1)

2nd - Glen Scotia 15 Years Old (3)

1st - Tomintoul 15 Years Old Port Wood Finish (2)

  • The number in brackets denotes the place of the whisky in the order of the tasting.

Glen Scotia 15 had been the winner in many many beautiful tastings previously and was pipped this year by Tomintoul 15 by just 1 vote!

62 people took part and we thank them for their kind support.