How does the selection of Canadian Whisky of the year get selected? I know that all of these samples are sent to you blind. Is it selected by the highest overall score? I also wonder the same thing about Distillery of the year. Is this selected by the distillery that received the most awards? I was wondering this watching last night. The other awards are a bit more self explanatory (I assume) with the Best Rye being that that has the highest combined (or average) score. Same with the Best Cask Strength whisky.
Scores are tallied and averaged between all the judges, and the top score is selected as the best whisky. I’m under NDA for anything more specific, but I think Davin is on record in saying that the difference between first and second place in the past has been as little as a few decimal point difference. Panelists do get a spreadsheet of these scores so that the system is transparent within the panel.
Panelists do not vote on the best distillery. That’s done by Davin. Panelists also don’t vote “per category”, we just score the whisky on its own independent of any categories. Davin tabulates the scores based on categories.
He did indicate last night that it was a fraction of a point difference. I was really more interested in what goes into the judging last night as opposed to who won to be honest. How do the samples come? Are they all separated into categories? Stuff like that. I imagine that a cream whisky isn't just lumped into all the samples. You probably do those on their own. Same with Rye and Cask Strength. It's really interesting. It was fun to watch as usually it's 60 people in a room in Victoria.
It’s as simple as you might imagine it. We get a spreadsheet. The flavored whiskies are always on top so we don’t confuse them. Everything else is whisky. They’re broadly categorized to help us assess the whisky (the spreadsheet is color-coded), but independently categorized from the actual awards. We don’t see categories like ‘Sippin’ Whisky of the Year Multi-market’ because some of those categories are cross-type. We just score whisky, the highest scorers in each category win. I don’t have a visibility of the categories from a panelist perspective.
I really like the format of it being online, yeah!
How does the selection of Canadian Whisky of the year get selected? I know that all of these samples are sent to you blind. Is it selected by the highest overall score? I also wonder the same thing about Distillery of the year. Is this selected by the distillery that received the most awards? I was wondering this watching last night. The other awards are a bit more self explanatory (I assume) with the Best Rye being that that has the highest combined (or average) score. Same with the Best Cask Strength whisky.
Scores are tallied and averaged between all the judges, and the top score is selected as the best whisky. I’m under NDA for anything more specific, but I think Davin is on record in saying that the difference between first and second place in the past has been as little as a few decimal point difference. Panelists do get a spreadsheet of these scores so that the system is transparent within the panel.
Panelists do not vote on the best distillery. That’s done by Davin. Panelists also don’t vote “per category”, we just score the whisky on its own independent of any categories. Davin tabulates the scores based on categories.
He did indicate last night that it was a fraction of a point difference. I was really more interested in what goes into the judging last night as opposed to who won to be honest. How do the samples come? Are they all separated into categories? Stuff like that. I imagine that a cream whisky isn't just lumped into all the samples. You probably do those on their own. Same with Rye and Cask Strength. It's really interesting. It was fun to watch as usually it's 60 people in a room in Victoria.
It’s as simple as you might imagine it. We get a spreadsheet. The flavored whiskies are always on top so we don’t confuse them. Everything else is whisky. They’re broadly categorized to help us assess the whisky (the spreadsheet is color-coded), but independently categorized from the actual awards. We don’t see categories like ‘Sippin’ Whisky of the Year Multi-market’ because some of those categories are cross-type. We just score whisky, the highest scorers in each category win. I don’t have a visibility of the categories from a panelist perspective.
I really like the format of it being online, yeah!
Thanks for the insight into the process, really interesting.