In the competition’s 30th year, The International Spirits Challenge 2025 has awarded 21 Double Gold medals to the category’s best representatives. 2025 was another strong year in terms of volume of entries, with the expert panel, chaired by Gordon Motion and David Stewart, judging around 1,000 whiskies across a week of blind tastings held at The Balmoral, Edinburgh. And it was Scotch whiskies that received the lion’s share of the honours with 60% of the Double Golds. Japan was also strong this year, achieving four Double Golds, while Ireland dropped out of this medal category for 2025.
The American whiskey fort was held by 1792, which achieved a Double Gold for its Bottled in Bond. Once again, Pernod Ricard’s regional subsidiaries saw strong performances, with top honours collected by bottlings from A'Glac Charran, Royal Salute, Scapa and The Glenlivet from its Chivas Brothers Scotch portfolio. The Glenmorangie Company wasn’t far behind, with three awards for brands including Ardbeg and Glenmorangie. In the Japanese whisky category, again it was brands from Suntory Spirits’ portfolio that most impressed, this year bottlings from Hibiki, The Yamazaki, Suntory blended and The Hakushu.
The whisky results are available to view online now at internationalspiritschallenge.com, while trophy winners will be announced at the ISC awards in London on 25 September. A full 2025 list of medal winners will be published in the ISC Results Magazine in October.