Australian gin distilleries Four Pillars and Kangaroo Island Spirits received three of the six Gold Outstanding medals for the Gin category following another strong year for spirits entries at the International Wine and Spirits Competition (IWSC) in London.

Four Pillars was awarded Gold Outstanding for its Bloody Underhill Vineyard Shiraz Gin and Single Barrel S36 Gin and Kangaroo Island Spirits for its O Gin.

During the first two weeks of March, 120 of the world’s leading spirit experts gathered in London to assess over 4,100 entries from 98 countries.

Of all the entries, 99 were awarded a coveted Gold Outstanding medal. In addition, 379 Gold medals were awarded, 1417 Silver and 1,512 Bronze medals.

Similarly to whiskey, gin has been one of the IWSC’s biggest spirits categories for several years. Judging was overseen by the Editor of The Spirits Kiosk and Gin Foundry, Olivier Ward.

The judges this year were excited by the various sub-genres like grape-infused gin, cask-aged, old Tom, flavoured gin, which illustrated the breadth of the gin category but also highlighted the overall amounts of creativity. Along with the six Gold Outstanding, they awarded 42 gins receiving a Gold medal, 251 receiving a Silver, and 489 a Bronze medal.

Head of Judges for Gin, Olivier Ward said there was a lot of variety and versatility this year particularly from Asia.

“It’s been fantastic to see so many Asian entries this year, mainly because it's a broad region, of course, but also there's a lot of different philosophies of what gin could be coming from this part of the world. The gins are obviously very different depending on whether they’re made for the domestic market or for export markets, whether they're looking at creating a product that may suits how we drink gin in Europe, like the gin and tonic, or maybe how they drink it in different places around the world, say with soda water - so there's been a lot to analyse,” said Oliver Ward.

“Let’s take grape-infused gins, that used to just be shiraz, now you're really getting Pinot, you're getting shiraz, you're getting all of these different grape varietals and it's not just “oh, that's a grape”, it’s absolutely clear which grape variety you are tasting. This style has become clearer and clearer as producers have got better understanding, hey, how do I integrate gin with my infusion? And then what am I trying to say above and beyond that? So that's that was a real highlight, I think in terms of seeing evolution within a sub-style.”

Ward said the other positive from this year was the number of really well-made London Dry Gins. He said this year there were a lot of well-made and well-articulated London dry gins bringing a sense of personality without moving away from classicism.

Other categories.

While Scotch Whisky was once again an incredibly successful category for awards, receiving 24 of the Gold Outstanding medals and 104 Golds, both the Rum and Tequila & Mezcal categories put in a strong performance this year. Rum entries took home 8 of this year’s Gold Outstanding medals (plus 29 Gold, 84 Silver and 164 Bronze medals) and ten entries were awarded a Gold Outstanding from the Tequila & Mezcal categories (as well as 21 Gold, 56 Silver and 57 Bronze medals.)

Vodka was another category that put in an impressive performance. Seven of this year’s Gold Outstanding awards went to Vodka entries, as well as 19 Gold medals, 86 Silver and 64 Bronze.

To receive the IWSC’s highest accolade of a Gold Outstanding medal, drinks need to be awarded an overall score of 98 points. Of the 99 spirits which were awarded 98+ points, 9 entries received the highest score 99 points. This year’s top scorers included an Aquavit, Grape Brandy, Rum, Baijiu, Irish Whisky, Scotch Whisky, Armagnac and two Vodkas.

Another Australian Gold Outstanding winner was Grainshaker Australian Wheat Vodka from Top Shelf International. The judges called it a stylish and versatile spirit with great purity.

The results for all spirits categories are available now on the IWSC website.

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