Malt Maniacs Awards 2014 – The Winners

This year (2014) sees the 12th edition of The Malt Maniacs Awards and once again we’ve seen some very strong competition throughout the three different categories for those prestigious awards. Our three categories are based on high street price and are as follows:

Daily Drams – Whiskies with a retail price up to €50

Premium Whiskies – Whiskies with a retail price between €51 and €150

Ultra Premium Whiskies – Whiskies with a retail price over €150

Within each category we offer five Awards; Supreme Winner, Best Sherried Whisky, Best Peated Whisky, Best Natural Cask Whisky and a “Thumbs Up” Award for a whisky we believe deserves a special mention. The competition is judged 100% blind, using only numbered samples and also judged only by a panel of our amateur members.

So, without further ado here are our deserving award winners for 2014:

Supreme Champion (Winner of Winners) Kavalan Solist (OB), Sherry Cask No. S060904031

Scoring an average 92 points across all our judges

Daily Drams category

Supreme Winner – Blackadder ‘Smoking Islay’ Cask No. BA2013/451

Best Sherried Whisky – Nantou Cask No.852

Best Peated Whisky – Blackadder ‘Smoking Islay’ Cask No. BA2013/452

Best Natural Cask Whisky – Boutique-y Whisky Company Inchmurrin

Thumbs Up – Lagavulin 16y – A Classic in excellent shape for 2014

Premium Whiskies category

Supreme Winner – Kavalan Solist (OB), Sherry Cask No. S060904031

Best Sherried Whisky – Kavalan Solist Sherry Cask No. S060821047 (OB for LMDW)

Best Peated Whisky – Kavalan Distillery Reserve “Peaty Cask”

Best Natural Cask Whisky – Blackadder “Raw Cask” Bowmore 13y

Thumbs Up – Adelphi Glenrothes 7y Cask No.3529 – So young but already so good

Ultra Premium category

Supreme Winner – Yoichi 21y Heavily Peated Madeira Finish Cask No. 129459

Best Sherried Whisky – Glen Grant 59y “Book of Kells” Cask No.845 (G&M for LMDW)

Best Peated Whisky – Benriach Tawny Port Finish Cask No.451

Best Natural Cask Whisky –Karuizawa 34y Ex-Bourbon Cask No.6476 (No.1 Drinks for LMDW)

Thumbs Up – Glengoyne 25y (OB) – Only standard distillery bottling in the top ranks

In addition to our Awards we recognize quality with our Medals based upon the average attained scores across all our judges, with our coveted Gold Medals being given to any whisky achieving an average of 90 points or more.

This year four whiskies have won our coveted Gold Medals and they are:

Kavalan Solist (OB), Sherry Cask No. S060904031 92pts (91.89)

Kavalan Solist Sherry Cask No. S060821047 (OB for LMDW) 91pts (90.89)

Yoichi 21y Heavily Peated Madeira Finish Cask No. 129459 91pts (90.75)

Glen Grant 59y “Book of Kells” Cask No.845 (G&M for LMDW) 90pts (90.33)

Full details and scores for MMA 2014 can be found on the Malt Maniacs website http://www.maltmaniacs.net/ and also our Malt Maniacs & Friends (MM&F) facebook page