Scottish Field Homecoming Scotland 2014 June issue

SCOTTISH FIELD WHISKY CHALLENGE

really established itself as an important barom- eter for what’s going on in the Scottish whisky industry and its results are eagerly awaited by experts and enthusiasts alike. One of the reasons for the success of the

CHALLENGE W

The

elcome to the fi rst stage in this year’s Scottish Field Whisky Challenge. Now in its fourteenth year, the Challenge has

Blind Tasting What makes this competition so unique and, importantly, so impartial, is the fact that our judges taste the whisky completely blind. With the branding and packaging completely stripped away, only the whisky is left, to be judged solely on its own merits. As with last year, we asked producers to

‘The results of the Scottish Field Whisky Challenge are eagerly awaited by experts and enthusiasts alike’

Scottish Field Whisky Challenge has been its unimpeachable credibility. We only appoint the most respected fi gures in the whisky world – men whose credentials, nose and provenance are impeccable – to be our judges, and this year is no exception. For the 2014 Challenge we have a fabulous

line-up of eight judges from our panel, who have used skills built up over a lifetime to bring you the top three whiskies in three categories: under £40, £40-£80 and over £80. As well as the kudos of winning such a prestigious award, the top whisky in each category is 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 2014. With thirty-nine of Scotland’s top whiskies

going head to head, our judges had their work cut out. This year’s summer challenge waves a fond farewell to Duncan Ralph, who we would like to thank for his efforts over the last few years and wish him well in future endeavours. In his place we extend a warm welcome to Ronnie Routeledge of Single Malts Direct, who joins our panel and who was one of the four inaugural judges in the Whisky Challenge. This is what we had in store for them.

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submit new expressions (since 1 January 2013), which could include blends, grains, malts or single casks. Then, at the Scottish Field offi ces, the thirty-nine bottles were decant- ed into 10cl sample bottles with only a number for identifi cation. These were then posted to the eight judges for tasting and scoring.

Scoring The judges were asked to award each of the thirty-nine whiskies a mark out of fi ve. We then took away the lowest and highest scores and used the remaining marks to produce an aver- age score for each of the expressions. We also asked the judges to provide us with detailed tasting notes.

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 whisky 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 highest scoring whiskies.

Slainte Scottish Field Whisky Challenge Team

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