French Oak Cask single malt whisky beat high profile entrants The Glenlivet, Bunnahabain, and Japanese Yamazaki for the award, which is considered to be the most prestigious in the world for whisky producers. Although the distillery is highly regarded in Australia as producing excellent drams, Patrick Maguire, manager and part-owner of Sullivan’s Cove said that it was an honour to be recognised on the global stage, SMH reports.
“It's the big one, there are a few big ones in the world such as the Jim Murray Whisky Bible and Liquid Gold awards, but the World Whiskies Award is it, that's the one everybody wants," Maguire told SMH.
"We've won Australia's best, Australasia's best and southern hemisphere's best in the past but to win the overall best whisky globally is incredible stuff.
"It'll really put Sullivan's Cove and Australian whisky on the world map, there'll be a lot of promotion of this in places like Britain and France, so it will really put us on top of the whisky tree."
The judges praised the winning drop for its ‘light peppery and intriguing’ taste, noting that the whisky was simple and not overly processed – which according to Maguire, is something that the larger distilleries have a tendency to do.
"The process of getting it into the bottle is something we do in a slow, old-fashioned way that retains all the natural flavours, colours and the viscosity of the whisky, and that's something the judges don't get the chance to taste all the time.
"With our whiskies, they are that old-fashioned style so that when the judges taste them they do tend to stand out, and that's why we've been consistently winning these awards.
"We're going to stick to our guns and continue on with the old-fashioned hand-bottling way that we do."
