2022 Spirits Awards - deliberations from our judges #3

Today marked day 6 of our 2022 spirits judging. As well as tasting contemporary gins, jenevers and fruit liqueurs on the second floor of China Exchange, up on the third floor, we had panels of whisky experts tasting through dozens of entries from Scotland.

A busy man, but not too busy to spare a few moments to catch up on the day’s proceedings, we spoke with Richard Paterson OBE, today’s Spirits Judging Committee member, overseeing our Scotch judging panels.

Richard has been tasting for the IWSC from almost its inception, and lots has changed – note taking has moved onto laptops and judges no longer break the days judging with a three-course lunch.  

His deliberations from today:

“Today we’ve been concentrating on Scotch Whisky, that noble spirit. We're talking about blended whiskies, blended malt, and onto the beautiful Speyside valley to assess these particular whiskies. The Speyside did very well – a lot of no age statements did very well.

“Overall, the competition has been unbelievable. Scotch whisky has risen to the bar, we've seen some great whiskies coming through the competition. A lot of great, top class cask curations, coming from sourcing the right wood. So unsurprisingly based on this feedback, we've awarded a number of Gold and Gold Outstanding medals. More whiskey tomorrow so let’s see what the day brings and we look forward to sharing the results next week.”

The IWSC’s 2022 Spirits Results will be available from 16 March 2022.