San Francisco World Spirits Competition

The San Francisco World Spirits Competition, which was held last month (March 13-14th), recently posted their preliminary results for the double-gold, gold, silver, and bronze medals in every category. This year's competition marked the 10th anniversary of America's longest-running spirits competition - apparently 10 years is a long time for us. Thirty spirits experts tasted 1,024 spirits at Hotel Nikko in San Francisco, also making this year's competition the largest international spirits competition to date. Fifty eight countries from six continents were represented (guess Antarctica hasn't come up with a way to distill a good "spirit" to keep them warm yet).

Although the "best of show" results for each category haven't been posted yet on the official competition page, you can see the current contenders on the
results page; any spirit that won a double gold medal is currently in the final round of "Sweepstakes." Whiskeys and whiskey varieties are found on pages 21-31 of the results pdf. Not surprisingly, some of the double gold winners in various whiskey categories include: Elijah Craig Single Barrel Kentucky Straight Bourbon, Kentucky, USA ($40), Seagrams VO Canadian Whiskey, Canada ($23), Bushmills 1608 Irish Whiskey, Ireland ($100), the Grand Bark Equinoxe Blended Scotch, Scotland ($55), Ardbeg Single Malt Scotch, Corryvreckan, Islay, Scotland ($85), and many, many others.


I was not able to make it to the San Francisco area this year for the competition, but I am planning ahead for the 2011 competition. You can view pictures of the competition/judging at Martha Bruce's Photography website. Stayed tuned to the competition website to view the final "best of" results within the next week!