This award satiates my curiosity as to whether a large corporate owner is able to make better whisky as a whole spread out over different brands or distilleries or whether a smaller independent owner focusing all their efforts focusing on making and improving on one product can do it better. The result… nope, there’s no real difference. The large conglomerates were mixed in with the mid-size owners and the boutiques. This was the hardest award to whittle down to three because there were many cases where I've tried only one or two expressions from a particular owner. In the end, of the 74 different owners to choose from, here are the three medalists and the two honorable mentions.
Bronze Medal
| William Grant and Sons | ||
| Whiskey | Colley Rating | Page Rating |
| Balvenie 14 Rum Cask | 75.4 | 58.9 |
| Balvenie 16 Triple Cask | 77.3 | 16.9 |
| Balvenie 17 Peated Cask | 95.4 | 71.8 |
| Balvenie American Oak Cask | 66.7 | 11.3 |
| Balvenie Doublewood | 54.4 | 40.2 |
| Glenfiddich 12 | 51.5 | 26.2 |
| Glenfiddich 15 | 70.6 | 51.9 |
| Glenfiddich 15 Solera Cask | 66.6 | 8.6 |
| Glenfiddich 18 | 62.4 | 16.5 |
| Glenfiddich 30 | 84.9 | 32.3 |
| Glenfiddich Cask Select | 29.5 | 0.7 |
| Monkey Shoulder | 52.6 | 34.5 |
| Tullamore D.E.W. | 10.7 | 4.5 |
A well deserved Bronze goes to William Grant and Sons, owners the brands listed above as well as Grant's, which I haven't yet sampled. The Balvenie has already earned a Bronze for best brand so I'll direct to the Top Brands of 2018 page for my praises of the Balvenie. Monkey Shoulder rivals Johnnie Walker as the most-used blend, it's been a while since I've had any but it always tempts me at a liquor store. The fruity and light Glenfiddich is also one that tempts me at a liquor store. (Note: That line keeps coming up in my awards but it isn't a throw away. There are so many more whiskies to drink and so little capacity for sampling!) This year the only Glenfiddich I tried was the 15 Yr Solera cask. It happened at an airport bar and was part of a beer + shot deal... not sure if this lovely dram was really on the list of allowed shots but I asked and the bartender didn't say no. The other WG & S I've had this year is the Tullamore D.E.W. I didn't like this one which says something about the strength of the others to keep the average up.
Silver Medal
| Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy | ||
| Whiskey | Colley Rating | Page Rating |
| Ardbeg 10 | 54.0 | 73.5 |
| Ardbeg Corryvreckan | 48.4 | 9.3 |
| Ardbeg Uigeadail | 60.3 | 14.4 |
| Glenmorangie 10 | 77.7 | 71.3 |
| Glenmorangie 18 | 79.5 | 21.0 |
| Glenmorangie Astar | 81.2 | 28.1 |
| Glenmorangie Lasanta | 75.1 | 61.8 |
| Glenmorangie Nectar D'Or | 80.2 | 46.6 |
| Glenmorangie Quinta Rubin | 50.8 | 32.5 |
| Glenmorangie Tarlogan | 42.6 | 1.6 |
| Glenmorangie Tayne | 51.5 | 73.8 |
Ardbeg 10 - A go to for peaty scotch. I'm currently working through 3 bottles exploring the affects of air and vacuum on whisky. Read more here.
Ardbeg Uigeadail - Long time since I've had it and it made it onto my Christmas list this year.
Glenmorangie 10 - In January I had a craving for a Glenmorangie and made an immediate run to the local liquor store for a bottle. (And it was on sale! Yay!)
Glenmorangie Astar - Made a point to try a dram of this lovely scotch at my favorite whisky bar. Read more here!
Glenmorangie Lasanta - It's the whisky that sealed the deal and made me on scotch drinker about 12 years ago.
Glenmorangie Tayne - I've had a love/hate relationship with this one so the verdict is still TBD, but I'm also using this to explore the affects of vacuum on a whisky.
In addition, I picked up two of Glenmorangie's sampler packs (containing the Original, Lasanta, Nectar D'Or, and the Quinta Rubin) when I found it on sale. On the horizon for 2019 will be to finish my bottle of the Tayne, open up the four different samples of the sampler pack, finish exploring the affects of vacuum on Ardbeg 10 and the Tayne, and if I have the capacity, reacquaint myself with the Uigeadail!
Gold Medal
| Remy Cointreau | ||
| Whiskey | Colley Rating | Page Rating |
| Bruichladdich 14 | 73.4 | 18.1 |
| Bruichladdich 16 | 93.7 | 46.7 |
| Bruichladdich 3DC | 81.7 | 43.2 |
| Bruichladdich Bere-Barley | 73.4 | 40.9 |
| Bruichladdich Laddie 8 | 60.8 | 11.7 |
| Octomore 5.1 | 77.0 | 41.4 |
| Octomore 6.3 | 68.8 | 15.5 |
| Octomore 7.2 | 75.4 | 40.1 |
| Port Charlotte 10 Tro Na Linntean | 76.8 | 52.4 |
| Port Charlotte 11 Eorna Na H-Alba | 72.3 | 42.2 |
| Port Charlotte CC:01 | 100.0 | 93.6 |
| Port Charlotte The Peat Project | 71.4 | 34.3 |
When Remy Cointreau came up high on my list my initial reaction was to disqualify them because their score is based solely on the Bruichladdich distillery. But after looking over the full list it became clear that despite being from only one distillery there is still a broad range of whiskies being produced there. The profiles of these whiskies - from the lighter Bruichladdich to the heavily peated Octomores and Port Charlottes - are about as different as those of LVMH (and more diverse than William Grant and Sons). In addition, Bruichladdich is definitely on the forefront of innovation and I have to assume that Bruichladdich has the blessing of its parent company to take on the additional risk.
Honorable Mentions:
Gordon and MacPhails actually came out on the top of my list but that is due to one particular bottle from Bunnahabhain that I absolutely love. In my collection I have a bottle of 15 Yr old Mortlach bottled by Gordon and MacPhails and I'm excited to open it up over the next year!
This past year I fell in love with the Filibuster Dual Cask Rye and also enjoy the Dual Cask bourbon but I didn't want to give a medal to Filibuster because both of these are sourced and finished using the same method. In other words, I really like someone else's distillate and one particular finish. It may be unfair to draw this distinction but I think the verdict is still out as to whether Filibuster can produce multiple expressions that earn high ratings.
Finally, if you've made it this far into this post, you may actually be interested in the full table of all distilleries. Here's the top 25%, happy to send more stats upon request!
| Owner | Colley | Page | total |
| Gordon & MacPhails | 84.8 | 69.7 | 154.5 |
| Remy Cointreau | 77 | 40 | 117.0 |
| Filibuster | 74.1 | 32 | 106.1 |
| Constellation Brands | 66.6 | 38.0 | 104.6 |
| Louis Vitton Moet Hennessy | 63.8 | 39.4 | 103.2 |
| Anthony Willis | 75.4 | 27.4 | 102.8 |
| Backbone Bourbon Co. | 81.1 | 17.8 | 98.9 |
| MGP | 78.8 | 17.1 | 95.9 |
| KGP Spirits | 75.9 | 15.1 | 91.0 |
| One Eight | 69.2 | 21.5 | 90.7 |
| Woods and Watson | 79.3 | 11.3 | 90.6 |
| William Grant & Sons | 61.4 | 28.8 | 90.2 |
| Kirin | 55.3 | 32.6 | 87.9 |
| Distell | 56.5 | 29.9 | 86.4 |
| Kentucky Bourbon Distillers | 56.9 | 27.9 | 84.8 |
| Templeton Rye Spirits | 62.6 | 19.6 | 82.2 |
| Ian MacCloud | 65.5 | 16.6 | 82.1 |
| Diageo | 53.5 | 27.9 | 81.4 |
| J & G Grant | 58.5 | 22.7 | 81.2 |
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