Personally, I never buy a whisky because it has won 3 gold medals at the SF WSC or any similar competition, which are for me worthless. However, this is quite important for the companies for their advertisement campaigns….
Like any investor, if you pay a few hundred dollars and this might allow to sell a few cases more, then this is a nice return on investment?
Unfortunately, the whisky enthusiast represent only marginal proportion of the whisky drinkers…

If all 25 judges try each spirit, that’s around 53 samples an hour (assuming an 8 hour day.)

Since the time/space continuum proves that that doesn’t work, I’d like to understand the break-down of panel size and logistics.

I think it is especially important to taste Independent Bottler whiskies first before buying, becuase the quality (and flavor) of these whiskies vary greatly. –John

IMHO, the Malt Maniacs medal derby is the most trustworthy of the bunch – as a collective group of extremely well informed enthusiasts, they have no apparent monetary motive, and my understanding is that they taste their samples in blind competition. And I’ve rarely tasted a dog for the whiskies that Mr. Hansell awards.

At the end of the day, the best way to evaluate whisky is to taste it yourself before buying. I would guess that is the main practice of anyone interested enough to read this board, so the discussion of this matter really pertains to the much larger number of consumers who rely on experts with varying degrees of association to marketers to help them choose their purchases rather than “us”.

To acknowledge Mr. Pacult, it is true, there are many high quality (and increasingly expensive) whiskies now available.

Ewan

I am aware of the Malt Maniac’s awards. I also know about the International Wine and Spirits Competition. What are your thoughts on IWSC? And are there any other “medal” competitions on your side of the pond? — John

I agree entirely with John that the number of medals awarded by the SFWSC is far too high. What I hadn’t realised was just how high it was – 88.4% medalwinners! And 31% Gold or Double Gold!!

It is clear that a medal awarded from the SFWSC, where over 260 of 847 entrants have received a Gold Medal (or better!), means rather less than an equivalent medal from the Malt Maniacs – 10 Gold Medals in the 2007 Awards from a field of around 200 entries (based on my possibly faulty maths and Serge’s figure of 5% of entries).

I must declare an interest here, as one of my company’s products won a Gold from the Malt Maniacs. However, I can assure you that the surprise and delight we experienced at finishing in the top 10 of the 200 products submitted was considerably more than we would have managed if we had entered the SFWSC and discovered that we were in the top 260 or so of 847.

In addition, the awards from the Malt Maniacs are rather more independent: most (if not all?) of the judges have no connection with the industry other than a love for the product, and there is no entry fee for competitors other than the price of the bottle submitted for sampling. They are not reliant on the good wishes of multinational drinks companies for their livelihoods. They even limit the amount of entries per company to a maximum of three.

This means that they can please themselves when it comes down to how the gongs are handed out, without having to worry about next years entries. This is emphatically not the case at the SFWSC, where the organising committee seems not to want to upset the companies submitting the entries (and the cheques), and has opted, therefore, to give everyone a prize simply for taking part.

It seems obvious to me that the larger companies are happy to pay $400 for what is a 90% chance of a medal, and it is therefore clearly in the interests of the organisers of the competition to make the attainment of a medal as easy as possible.

Look at it from the perspective of the companies entering the competition. If you have a 5% chance of a Gold medal and it costs $400 a time, you would only enter your very best stuff. If you have a 31% chance of a Gold (or a Double Gold!), and a 90% chance of some kind of award, then you might as well enter the whole range. In that light, it is little wonder that the SFWSC attracts so many entries each year.

In my opinion Mr Pacult, whose work I have enormous respect for, is being disingenuous in his (slightly rude) response to John’s thoughts when he says that the reason for so many awards is that the quality of distillate has gone up so much in recent years. Even if this is true (and certainly in whisky terms there are a lot of obvious examples where this is not the case), surely we should be judging today’s spirits by today’s standards rather than the standards of the past?

It is also misleading to say that the companies are only submitting their best products. As Serge says, the same companies only send the best products to the Malt Maniacs Awards (they have to, as they are only allowed three entries!). Again, even if this was true (and I have made my feelings about that clear earlier in this diatribe), it is down to the organisers of the awards to decide how strict the criteria for their awards should be. Mr Pacult’s argument in relation to this would seem to be ‘It’s not our fault that everything is so good.’ But is this a good argument? And does 847 entrants really only represent the elite of spirits?

In my humble opinion (in relation to which I am well aware that nobody will be losing any sleep, which is why I’m happy to hold forth on this matter), at any competition where practically a third of the entrants receive a Gold or better, a Silver or Bronze is definitely nothing to be proud of, and as a ‘marketing and promotion opportunity’ will become less ‘fabulous’ each year. We are a cynical bunch over here in the UK (some might say less credulous) and a lot of people in the industry stopped taking the results of the SFWSC seriously some time ago.

Unfortunately, a competition that awards so many medals devalues all similar awards and not just its own. The customer is not as stupid as some people in the industry would like to think.

Apologies for the length of this post, this is something that I feel strongly about.

Paul’s explanation makes good sense… but also sounds a bit like “spin.” I subscribe to the Spirit Journal and respect Paul’s opinion very much. What I don’t like is that I just don’t understand how the S.F. Competition came to be in the first place. What’s the purpose? The only explanation on their website is that “It is a fabulous marketing and promotion opportunity for the top medal winners.” That doesn’t sound so great to a consumer like me. Again, I understand Pauls’ defense, but full disclosure would really go a long way. His newsletter doesn’t accept advertising (kudos)… yet his competition almost seems to pander to the distillers. Please, Paul, pull the curtain open and show us that things are on the level.

John’s doing what a lot of people in the industry don’t do — he’s being honest and he’s putting himself out there. Any critic who’s willing to challenge the very industry that he’s a part of gets a gold medal in my book… or at least 90 points.

One more man’s opinion, anyhow.

The “prestigious” San Francisco World Spirits Competition can do better.

I stand with Serge on his view that a rating system would be much more honest, accurate, and effective than this “medals” thing.