Initially launched in 2000, The 2023 San Francisco World Spirits Competition (aged 23 years) had over 5,000 global spirit entries in its recent April combat session. Find out how Bourbon stacked up and which brands took home top honors.

2 Important Metrics: It Matters

Judges: The judges panel is a stand out group of respected spirit industry professionals (36 in total) ranging from bartenders, bar owners, spirit media gurus, and long standing industry fixtures. At the end of the day it’s all opinion based, everyone has a different tastes. But this assembled group has significant volume and experience to get our attention and curiosity of what is stand out in their collective eyes.

Blind Tasting: This is crucial in eliminating biased. No recognition of either brand or price point. Per their website – Throughout four days of highly controlled blind tastings, our experienced judging panels taste every product to decide if it is medal-worthy. Judges do not receive any information on producer or price point, ensuring each spirit is judged fairly, equally, and without bias.

A point of minor constructive view – palate fatigue. Tasting ALL those samples in a 4 day crash test setting. But hey, tough job jduges lol, somebody has to do it.

Awards Structure

Here’s the pecking order. Technically, Platinum is top dog, but this is rare as none were spotted in the Bourbon category this year. Double Gold is essentially king and on down the line. Per Double Gold. all judges must award Gold to that particular spirit.

Bourbon: Who Took Home Double Gold?

Out of the 5,000ish total entries, Bourbon accounted for roughly 450 total medals. Out of that 450, it grabbed 81 Double Golds and ~120 Golds. That doesn’t include Rye, American Blended Whiskey or American Single Malt. For perspective, there were around 500 total Double Golds awarded across all spirits. Scotch received approaching 270 total medals with approx. 100 Double Golds.

For all category awards, Click Here. This is a database that allows keyword search ie Scotch, Tequila, Rye. It will pull up all affiliated medal winners per keyword.

7 Subcategories of Bourbon:

• Straight Bourbon
• Special Barrel-Finished Bourbon
• Wheated Bourbon
• Small Batch Bourbon Up to 5 Years
• Small Batch Bourbon 6-10 Years
• Single Barrel Bourbon Up to 10 Years
• Single Barrel Bourbon 11 Years and Older

BOURBON DOUBLE GOLD WINNERS

The following Bourbon brands took home Double Gold honors. Of note, there are a few extra brands noted beyond 81 (ie Bourbon Cream Liqueur). It’s a lot of data folks.

Of note, it’s interesting and kind of fun to see the out of Kentucky Bourbon’s make some noise.

BOURBON GOLD WINNERS

There were ~120 Gold winners at the Bourbon podium.

For more industry news and insight, please visit us at www.gobourbon.com

The post BEST BOURBONS Per 2023’s “San Francisco World Spirits Competition” first appeared on The Bourbon Review.