NZ Gins Medal Up at NZ Spirits Awards

The spirits have been tasted, the scores are in and the results are now out and it’s fair to say NZ gin was the winner on the day at the second New Zealand Spirits Awards.

“Out of the 91 NZ gin entries 82 medalled with two double-golds and nine gold medals being awarded,” said Spirits New Zealand Chief Executive, Robert Brewer.

“For those Kiwis already enjoying NZ gin, names of the gold winners will already be familiar including Broken Heart, Dancing Sands, Curiosity and Juno,” said Robert.

The awards are also a triumph of persistence since the COVID-19 response saw them delayed for several months waiting for the right time to be able to hold the judging.

“We’re very lucky that we have a pool of top NZ judges that were willing to wait and, because we could not fly in our overseas judges, take over and run the tasting,” Distilled Spirits Aotearoa Chair, Sue James.

“The result has been that we had 261 entries from 51 separate entities – more than we had when we first ran the awards last year,” said Sue.

But if the awards were a showcase of how good New Zealand gin is they also showed how strong Scotland’s hold on whisky still is with the six gold medals and the majority of the silvers all being from the home of single malts.

“New Zealand whiskies stilled medalled but it is not surprising that the likes of Talisker, Lagavulin, BenRiach and Johnny Walker were judged as gold medal winners,” said Robert.

“It is only a matter of time – literally – before homegrown whiskies challenge their Scottish cousins.”

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