Prestigious ‘Olympics of the Drink Industry’ returns to Kentucky this week
The International Wine & Spirits Competition, considered “the Olympics of the Drinks Industry,” is back in Kentucky for a second year.
Judges are holed up in Bardstown the rest of this week sampling two categories: North American whiskeys, which include bourbon, and Ready to Drink, a booming category that includes things like canned cocktails.
The categories are part of 12,000 samples submitted by bourbon, whiskey and other spirits makers and wineries worldwide to be rated by London, England-based IWSC. Judges travel to seven locations around the globe to evaluate spirits from more than 90 countries.
Founded in 1969, the IWSC first came to Kentucky last year for judging to encourage more U.S. whiskey producers to enter, particularly the surging single-malt category. Entrants can earn Bronze, Silver, Gold and Gold Outstanding medals; top-scoring products advance to trophy judging in November to determine the very best in each category.
The event is not open to the public.
If tasting bourbons for days sounds like a dream gig, just know that it takes a lot of training to get there.
Dawn Davies, a Master of Wine and the head buyer for the retailer The Whisky Exchange, leads the panel of spirits experts from America and the United Kingdom who do the judging.
The IWSC is one of the oldest, largest and most influential spirits competitions: Winning a Gold Outstanding medal, such as Louisville-based Peerless Distilling’s Toasted Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey did last year (the only bourbon to achieve that rating in 2024), can help steer new customers to a label on increasingly crowded store shelves.
Davies said in an interview with the Herald-Leader that the judges have to be skilled experts who can also differentiate and describe what they are sampling.
“Everyone can taste. Everyone can pick up a glass, and they can try it ... but to assess and really understand and really break down a product, to really understand quality and understand the liquid itself, because you have to have knowledge on that,” Davies said. “Your tongue actually is a muscle, so the more you taste, the more you practice, the better your palate gets, and the better your tongue gets.”
Davies said the panel of tasters will judge no more than 70 samples a day, with lots of breaks between flights of about a dozen at a time, to keep their palates from being overwhelmed, especially by higher proof spirits.
Each spirit is assessed against others of the same type and style by a panel of three or four judges at a time in double-blind samplings and scored on criteria such as complexity and depth of finish.
After everything is sampled and scored, Davies will go back and re-sample outliers where judges have disagreed, as well as all of the spirits that the panels have deemed worthy of Gold and Gold Outstanding medals based on their scores.
“If I have any queries on it, I will go to the table and I’ll debate it,” she said. She sometimes moves a sample up or down based on her comparison with other spirits in the rankings.
“It’s a really, really rigorous process,” she said. “It’s not easy. It might sound ideal and amazing, but by the end of it, all you want is a cold beer.”
The aim is for a bottle that they dub worthy of a Gold Outstanding medal to be one you’re like “oh my God, I love this so much, I’m just so excited about it and I want everyone to drink it,” Davies said.
Besides Davies, this year’s judges for the North American group are:
- Bridget Albert, Senior Director, external communications and corporate social responsibility, Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits
- Ryan Chetiyawardana, drinks industry veteran, creator and host of “Mr. Lyan’s Taste Trips” television show
- Frank Dobbins III, freelance writer, Uproxx and Drinkhacker
- Bill Lumsden, director of distilling, whisky creation and whisky stocks, Glenmorangie Company
- Millie Milliken, freelance drinks and hospitality writer
- Ryan Mills, founder, Amber and Ash Consulting, @thatoneduderyan
- Reece Sims, owner, SIP Spirits Consulting, shortlisted for the 2025 IWSC’s Emerging Talent in Spirits Communications Award
The results of the competition will be released in mid-June.
And just like last year, there are likely to be some real surprises: In 2024, Davies said, the IWSC awarded its first Gold Outstanding medal to a Korean whiskey.
“There are only two distilleries in Korea, so that was pretty awesome. I was really proud,” she said.
