Amrut named Young World Whisky Distillery by Malt Maniacs

Amrut Distilleries has been given a specially created award by a prestigious group of malt whisky lovers. It also picked up four Silver Medals and two Bronze Medals in the annual awards announced on 1 December, 2010. The Indian malt whisky distiller was given the Young World Whisky Distillery Award in the Malt Maniacs Awards 2010. This special award was created to recognise Amrut’s impressive performance this year. Johannes van den Heuvel, one of the awards’ founders and Editor of Malt Madness/Malt Maniacs notes that although the Amrut distillery has not been active long enough to have built up sufficient old stocks to compete with the Scots and Japanese in the ultra premium bracket, its younger releases were among the big winners this year. “As far as I’m concerned the biggest surprises were young whiskies from Taiwan and India,” he said.

The Malt Maniacs are an international on-line collective of malt whisky lovers which have been spreading the gospel of single malt whisky since 1997. Each year members form a jury to sample – completely blind – hundreds of whiskies, in what is probably the only consumer-driven whisky competition. This year they evaluated 262 samples.

Amrut’s 2010 Silver Medals:

87 Amrut 2004/2009 (52%, OB for Huis Crombé Kortrijk, Bourbon C#2930, 221 Bts.)
86 Amrut ‘Special Reserve’ (63%, OB for TWE 10th Anniversary,Bottled +/- 2010)
86 Amrut ‘Port Morant Rum Finish’ (62.3%, Blackadder, BA 9/2010, Bottled 6/2010, 278 Bts.)
85 Amrut ‘Intermediate Sherry Matured’ Batch #1 (57.1%, OB, Bottled June 2010)

Amrut’s 2010 Bronze Medals:

84 Amrut ‘Kadhambam’ Batch #1 (50%, OB, Bottled June 2010)
84 Amrut NAS ‘Bowmore Finish’ (62%, Blackadder SC, BA 10/2010, Bottled 6/2010, 288 Bts.)

Ashok Chokalingam, Amrut’s International sales manager, said: “We are delighted that such passionate whisky enthusiasts recognise our efforts. This year we have launched some really innovative limited editions and it is great to see the Malt Maniacs give one of our most recent releases, Intermediate Sherry Matured, a silver medal.”T his year’s success for follows Amrut’s impressive showing in the 2009 awards. Amrut Fusion Single Malt Whisky was named the Malt Maniacs’ Best Natural Cask whisky in the Daily Drams Category. It also picked up the award for the best whisky matured exclusively in “untreated”, regular cask(s) in the category for whiskies with an average price of up to 50 euros. It was awarded a Silver medal. Fusion gets its name from the fact that it uses two barleys: Indian and Scottish – with the latter being peated. Leading whisky expert, Jim Murray also named it as the third best malt in the world in his Whisky Bible 2010.

Amrut Distilleries Ltd, The Grainger Suite, Dobson House, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE3 3PF, UK. Tel + 44 (0) 7838 229914 or + 44 (0) 191 233 6316. Email ashok@amrutdistilleries.com