In my old blog, I posted a long time ago some common complaints, when it comes to spirit competitions: usually the spirit companies have to pay for their participation [so small companies usually don't compete], they have also to offer their product free of charge to the tasting panel.
And to believe, that these competitions are independent, is analogue to the belief, that their is a tooth fairy.
And then there are so many competitions [it is a lucrative business to do this competitions due to the participation fees] and usually there is no clear winners but a lot of gold medals, double gold medals [WTF is double gold??] as well as silver and bronze and so on.
But even if everything would be utopian fair - there would be one point, which cannot be neglected:
it is quite easy to judge a quality of spirit - but to make a ranking is almost impossible [at least not a fair ranking].
It becomes obvious, if you just take a rather small category: Scotch Single Malts: there is a great "malty" and maybe heavily "sherried" Speyside and a relentlessly peated Islay whisky. You might say, both are very good products - but how can you rank them - as they are so different? And even more similar products are really hard to rank.
We are not slaves to the numbers - and if it comes to that, always the more "average" products wins against a product with more integrity - especially if more than one person is tasting.
On the other hand, everyone has a "different taste" everyday - so lets face it - taste cannot be written in stone [that brings accurate tasting notes ad absurdum].
In fact, there was only one occasion in my whole life, when in a blind tasting one spirit was far beyond every other product and clear a winner - almost a decade ago, I participated a tasting of brandies - of totally different qualities - after a rather long up and down [we tasted around 20 different distillates] one stood out - and was almost magically: Frapin Fontpinot XO.
I don't get any incentive, support or sponsoring of Frapin Cognac - but since then, I am a big fan of the company and their products...
And to believe, that these competitions are independent, is analogue to the belief, that their is a tooth fairy.
And then there are so many competitions [it is a lucrative business to do this competitions due to the participation fees] and usually there is no clear winners but a lot of gold medals, double gold medals [WTF is double gold??] as well as silver and bronze and so on.
But even if everything would be utopian fair - there would be one point, which cannot be neglected:
it is quite easy to judge a quality of spirit - but to make a ranking is almost impossible [at least not a fair ranking].
It becomes obvious, if you just take a rather small category: Scotch Single Malts: there is a great "malty" and maybe heavily "sherried" Speyside and a relentlessly peated Islay whisky. You might say, both are very good products - but how can you rank them - as they are so different? And even more similar products are really hard to rank.
We are not slaves to the numbers - and if it comes to that, always the more "average" products wins against a product with more integrity - especially if more than one person is tasting.
On the other hand, everyone has a "different taste" everyday - so lets face it - taste cannot be written in stone [that brings accurate tasting notes ad absurdum].
In fact, there was only one occasion in my whole life, when in a blind tasting one spirit was far beyond every other product and clear a winner - almost a decade ago, I participated a tasting of brandies - of totally different qualities - after a rather long up and down [we tasted around 20 different distillates] one stood out - and was almost magically: Frapin Fontpinot XO.
I don't get any incentive, support or sponsoring of Frapin Cognac - but since then, I am a big fan of the company and their products...
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