SCOTTISH FIELD WHISKY CHALLENGE


How the challenge works


‘What makes this competition so unique is the fact that our judges taste the whisky completely blind’


Whisky Challenge has really established itself as an important barometer for what’s going on in the Scottish whisky industry and its results are eagerly awaited by afi cionados and occasional ‘drammers’ alike.


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One of the reasons for the success of the Scottish Field Whisky Challenge from its incep- tion has been its unimpeachable credibility. We only appoint the most respected fi gures in the whisky world – men and women whose creden- tials, nose and provenance are impeccable – to be our judges. This year, we have a fabulous line-up of six judges from our panel, who have used skills built up over a lifetime to bring you the top three whis- kies in three categories: under £35, £35-£80 and over £80. As well as the kudos of winning such a prestigious award, the top three whiskies in each category are automatically entered into the Grand Final at the end of the year, when our full panel of judges get together to choose the Scottish Field Whisky of the Year 2012. With forty of Scotland’s top whiskies going head to head, the pressure was really on our judges. This year’s summer challenge waves a temporary goodbye to Julie Trevisan Hunter who, thankfully, will return later in the year to defend her Judge of the Year crown in our winter chal- lenge, and Tatsuya Minagawa, who is away to pastures greener – we wish him luck in his new endeavours. In their places we bid a welcome return to Scottish Field Whisky Challenge regu- lars, Darren Leitch, Charles Maclean, Mike Lord,


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elcome to Scottish Field’s bi-annual Scotch Whisky Supplement. Now in its twelfth year, the Scottish Field


Duncan Ralph and Mark Connelly. With our team of experts ready and raring to go, this is what we had in store for them...


Blind Tasting


What makes this competition so unique is the fact that our judges taste the whisky completely blind. The branding and packaging is stripped away, leaving the whisky to be judged solely on taste.


This year we asked producers to submit new expressions (since 1 January 2011): blends, grains, malts or single casks. At the Scottish Field offi ces the forty 70cl bottles were decanted into four-hundred 10cl sample bottles with only a number for identifi cation. These were then posted to the six judges for tasting and scoring.


Scoring


As well as the tasting notes, we also asked the judges to score each of the forty whiskies out of fi ve. We then took away the lowest and highest scores and used the remaining four marks to produce an average score for each whisky.


The results


Once all the judges’ scores were in we sepa- rated the whiskies into their relevant categories to fi nd the fi rst, second and third placed whisky. The top three whiskies in each category will automati- cally be entered into our Grand Final at the end of the year. We have also listed the top ten high- est scoring whiskies.


Slainte Scottish Field Whisky Challenge Team


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