Get Your Spirits Ready

[fotoski]

The American Distilling Institute is pleased to announce the 2011 Judging of Craft American Spirits prior to the annual conference in Portland Oregon. Brandies and Whiskies will be judged in a blind tasting by a panel of select judges. The purpose of this judging is to help promote the American craft distillers that are producing the finest quality spirits and to give participating distillers valuable, unbiased, third-party feedback on the quality of their spirits.

Brandies will be judged in the following categories.

Brandy (aged and unaged) from grapes, apple, cherry, peach, pear, plum, raspberry, and other

Grappa

Fruit Infusions (fruit infusions into a fruit-based spirit)

Whiskies will be judged in the following categories:

Aged Whiskey (Malt, Bourbon, Wheat, Corn, Rye, and other)

Un-aged Whiskey

Packaging Award:

ADI will also award innovative packaging. Bottles will be judges on overall originality, creativity, graphic design, integration of bottle design to label style, and aesthetic appeal. The packaging award will be given for both bottle and gift box design. Each spirit submitted for judging will also be considered for the packaging award. Producers who wish to enter spirits for which there is no category, may enter bottles for only the packaging award.

ADI reserves the right to either add additional categories or combine categories as necessary to facilitate judging, based upon the number and type of entries received. ADI will evaluate spirits made entirely at one DSP in separate categories from those from products that include spirits distilled at other facilities.

The judging panel will include Hubert Germain-Robin, David Pickerell, Alexandre Gabriel, Julia Nourney, Flavien Desoblin, Jeanine Koszalka Racht and others.

Gold, silver and bronze medals will be awarded with certificates and bottle-stickers made available for spirits judged worthy of recognition. All entrants will receive tasting notes with comments from the spirits judges.

Deadline for sprits registration is March 18, 2011. All spirits must arrive in Portland for judging by March 25, 2011 to be considered - no exceptions. Judging will be held Sunday-Monday April 2-3, 2011 and medals will be announced Wednesday night, April 6, 2011, at a banquet at the Benson Hotel, in Portland, OR.

For complete information go to: http://www.distilling.com/2011Conference/spiritsJudging/submissionGuidlines.php

For questions that are not answered there, contact ADI’s Judging Director, Andrew Faulkner, drew@distilling.com, 415-517-7377.