The International Whisky Competition has announced its 2026 results, and today we are focusing on single malt Scotch. The competition judges its entries blind, meaning the panel does not know the brand, country, or age of what they are assessing. Each whisky is scored individually on a 100-point scale.
The 2026 single malt Scotch results show a familiar pattern. Five of the nine category winners come from distilleries owned by Bacardi’s John Dewar & Sons: Aberfeldy took three titles, including the overall Best Single Malt Scotch, and Royal Brackla took three age categories. Bruichladdich and Ardbeg account for three more wins between them. The final winner is an unnamed Islay malt entered under embargo, and it swept three categories.
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Here is what we know about each one.
Aberfeldy Sherry Cask 25 Years Old
Award: 1st Place, Best Single Malt Scotch, 1st Place, Best Single Malt Scotch 25 Year Old, 1st Place, Best Highland Single Malt, 92.05 points
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Tasting Notes: Cocoa powder, caramel, cinnamon, fruit, malty cereal, vanilla coffee, smoke, peaches, wild strawberries
Find Your Next Bottle: £500 / $529
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The top single malt Scotch of the 2026 competition comes from a distillery built by the Dewar family themselves. Aberfeldy was constructed in Perthshire by John Dewar & Sons in 1896 and began distilling in 1898. It remains the only distillery the family ever built. Water comes from the Pitilie Burn, which runs past the distillery and is known for its gold-rich waters.
Dewar’s describes the production as involving “extra long fermentation in larch washbacks, and distillation in our tall pot stills.” Aberfeldy continues to make up the heart of the Dewar’s blend.
The 25 Year Old is the oldest expression in Aberfeldy’s core range, alongside the 12, 16, and 21. Aberfeldy says the whisky was “Initially matured in a combination of refill casks, the whisky is then finished for over a year in first-fill Oloroso Sherry casks.” It is bottled at 46% ABV and is non-chill filtered.
In 2023, Aberfeldy released a limited edition of the 25 in a commemorative pack to mark the distillery’s 125th anniversary, using the same maturation and finish.
Bruichladdich The Classic Laddie
Award: 1st Place, Best Single Malt Scotch NAS (No Age Statement)
Tasting Notes: Orchard fruits, toasted oak, citrus, vanilla, creme brulee, toffee, gingerbread, toasted bread, marzipan, coconut, rose, salt, stone fruits
Find Your Next Bottle: $43 / £33
There is a wrinkle worth mentioning here. The Classic Laddie took the no age statement category, but Bruichladdich reinstated an age statement on the bottling in 2025, and it is now sold as The Classic Laddie 10 Aged Years. It is possible that the IWC sampled an NAS version for the competition this year.
What has not changed is the approach. Since 2016, every bottle has carried a five-digit code you can enter on Bruichladdich’s website to see exactly which casks went into your batch, and where the barley came from.
The distillery sits on Loch Indaal, on the Rinns of Islay, and still runs much of its original Victorian machinery. Bruichalddich is the unpeated side of the operation, made from 100% Scottish barley, trickle distilled, and matured entirely on Islay. The Classic Laddie is bottled at 50% ABV, without chill filtration or added coloring.
There is no fixed recipe. Master Blender Adam Hannett assembles each batch by hand, and Bruichladdich states plainly that it is not aiming for consistency between them.
Ardbeg Wee Beastie
Award: 1st Place, Best Single Malt Scotch Under 10 Years Old, 89.40 points
Tasting Notes: Chocolate, tar, savoury meats, black pepper, sappy pine resin, intense smoke
Find Your Next Bottle: $55 / £33
No second or third place was named in this category. The IWC does award all three, describing its system as working like the Olympics, with one gold, one silver, and one bronze per category unless there is a tie. It does not publish how many whiskies entered each category, so we cannot say for certain how large the field was or why the Ardbeg alone placed. This category has run short before: in 2020 the IWC listed a first and second place with no third, and in 2023 Wee Beastie won with a single runner-up behind it.
Wee Beastie has now won this category several times over, which says something in itself.
Ardbeg has been distilling on the south coast of Islay since 1815. The distillery closed in 1981 and spent much of the following decade out of action before Glenmorangie plc bought it in 1997 and restarted production. LVMH acquired Glenmorangie, and Ardbeg with it, in 2004. Along with Bruichladdich, it is one of two distilleries here outside the Dewar’s portfolio.
The whisky itself is a five year old, added to the core range in April 2020, and one of the youngest age-stated Scotches from a major distillery. Ardbeg matures it in a combination of ex-bourbon and Oloroso sherry casks. Ardbeg describes this as “a monster of a dram.”
Bruichladdich Port Charlotte 10 Year Old
Award: 1st Place, Best Single Malt Scotch 10 Year Old, 91.65 points
Tasting Notes: Earthy oak, caramel, fudge, vanilla custard, ginger, nutmeg, clove, citrus, thyme, heather, smoke, lemon honey, smoked oysters, salt, fudge, tropical fruits, banoffee pie
Find Your Next Bottle: $60 / £50
Bruichladdich makes three distinct single malts under one roof, and the distinction between them is peat. Bruichladdich itself is unpeated. Port Charlotte is peated to 40 ppm. Octomore sits at the far end, above 80 ppm.
Port Charlotte 10 arrived in May 2018 as the flagship of the peated range. The barley is sourced from Invernesshire and peated to 40 ppm. Fermentation happens in the distillery’s original Douglas fir washbacks, and the spirit is distilled twice through Bruichladdich’s tall, narrow-necked Victorian stills.
The cask breakdown is unusually specific, and Bruichladdich publishes it: 65% first-fill American whiskey casks, 10% second-fill American whiskey casks, and 25% second-fill French wine casks. The whisky is matured and bottled on Islay, which is less common than you might think for an Islay malt, as a good deal of the island’s spirit is aged on the mainland.
Royal Brackla Oloroso 12 Years Old
Award: 1st Place, Best Single Malt Scotch 12 Year Old, 91.37 points
Tasting Notes: Ripe peaches, black cherries, chocolate-covered almonds, muscovado sugar
Find Your Next Bottle: $78 / £63
On 15 August 1833, Captain William Fraser received an order from King William IV for whisky to be sent to St James’s Palace. That same year, Brackla became the first Scotch whisky ever granted a royal warrant, changed its name to Royal Brackla, and began advertising itself in the London papers as The King’s Own Whisky. Queen Victoria renewed the warrant in 1838.
Royal Brackla is one of only three distilleries ever permitted the Royal prefix. The others are Royal Lochnagar and the demolished Glenury Royal.
The distillery sits on the Cawdor Estate near Nairn, in the Highlands, and has done since Fraser founded it in 1812. It has changed hands repeatedly since, closing in 1985 and reopening in 1991, and has been run by John Dewar & Sons, part of Bacardi, since 1998. Bacardi relaunched the single malt range in 2019, built around sherry cask finishes.
The spirit is unpeated, made from 100% Scottish barley. All Royal Brackla whiskies carry an age statement, and the 12 is the youngest of them. It is matured in American oak and finished in Oloroso sherry casks. Like the rest of the core range, it is bottled at 46% ABV, non-chill filtered, with natural color.
New Product Under Embargo D
Award: 1st Place, Best Single Malt Scotch 15 Year Old, 1st Place, Best Islay Single Malt, 1st Place, Best Peated Scotch, 91.80 points
The most intriguing result of 2026 belongs to a whisky nobody outside the competition can name.
The entry appears in the results as New Product Under Embargo D, and the IWC has withheld the distillery, the brand, and everything else. What the awards themselves tell us is that it comes from Islay, it is peated, and it carries a 15 year age statement.
Everything past that is guesswork. Islay has nine working distilleries, several of which release peated whisky at around this age, including the recent re-release of the Laphroaig 15 Year Old. Could the Laphroaig dram be the one? We don’t know…yet.
For now, watch this space.
Aberfeldy Madeira Cask 16 Years Old
Award: 1st Place, Best Single Malt Scotch 16-17 Year Old, 88.00 points
Tasting Notes: Honey, citrus, baked apples, spice, cinnamon, vanilla, caramel, ripe fig, walnut oil, dark chocolate
Find Your Next Bottle: $109 / £88
You will not find this one in your local shop. The Aberfeldy 16 Year Old Madeira Cask is sold only through airport duty free, part of a range of Madeira-finished Aberfeldys released exclusively into global travel retail by Bacardi.
The distillery and the spirit are the same as the 25 Year Old that took the top award: Perthshire, unpeated, honeyed, long fermentation in larch washbacks. What differs is the wood. After 16 years of maturation, the whisky is finished for up to 12 months in Madeira casks.
Malt Master Stephanie Macleod, who has been named the IWC’s Master Blender of the Year five times, put it simply: “Madeira is Aberfeldy’s best friend. This delicious wine perfectly complements Aberfeldy’s rich character.”
It is bottled at 40% ABV. Aberfeldy notes that almost half a cask is lost to evaporation over those 16 years before the whisky is ready to finish and bottle.
The score of 88.00 is the lowest of the nine winners here, which is a reminder that a category win reflects the field a whisky was judged against, not an absolute standard.
Royal Brackla Palo Cortado 18 Years Old
Award: 1st Place, Best Single Malt Scotch 18 Year Old, 90.53 points
Tasting Notes: Rich spices, creamy vanilla, big, succulent soft fruits, cocoa powder, citrus
Find Your Next Bottle: $175 / £140
Royal Brackla’s second win of the competition, and the middle expression in its sherry-finished range.
Palo Cortado is the rarest of the sherry styles, accounting for a small fraction of what Jerez produces, and it turns up only occasionally as a whisky finish. Sherry’s governing body describes it as combining the aromatic delicacy of an Amontillado with the structure and body of an Oloroso.
The 18 is built the same way as the rest of the core range: primary maturation in American oak, then a finishing period in the sherry casks that give the bottling its name. Bottled at 46% ABV, non-chill filtered, natural color.
The distillery itself is covered above under the 12 Year Old. Founded on the Cawdor Estate in 1812, first Scotch ever granted a royal warrant, and part of Bacardi’s John Dewar & Sons since 1998. The spirit is unpeated, made entirely from Scottish barley, and every Royal Brackla expression carries an age statement.
Royal Brackla Oloroso, Palo Cortado, & Pedro Ximénez 21 Years Old
Award: 1st Place, Best Single Malt Scotch 19-24 Year Old
Tasting Notes: Syrupy toffee, summer berries, cinnamon, muscovado sugar
Find Your Next Bottle: $245 / £196
Royal Brackla’s third title of the competition, and the most elaborately finished whisky of the nine. Where the 12 uses Oloroso and the 18 uses Palo Cortado, the 21 uses all three sherry styles, adding Pedro Ximénez to the pair.
Dewar’s describes what each contributes: the Oloroso casks give structure and a dry spice, the Palo Cortado brings nuttiness, and the Pedro Ximénez adds sweetness.
Malt Master Stephanie Macleod handles the cask selection across the range, and the sherry casks come from Bodegas José y Miguel Martín in Jerez. The whisky spends 21 years in American oak before the finishing casks come into play, and is bottled at 46% ABV, non-chill filtered, with natural color.
The Dewar’s Sweep Continues
Five of the nine single malt Scotch titles at the 2026 International Whisky Competition went to distilleries owned by John Dewar & Sons, the whisky arm of Bacardi. Aberfeldy took three, including the overall Best Single Malt Scotch, and Royal Brackla took three age categories.
Dewar’s also took all seven blended Scotch categories this year, and its Malt Master Stephanie Macleod has now been named the competition’s Master Blender of the Year for seven consecutive years.
The remaining titles went to Bruichladdich, Ardbeg, and a whisky that has yet to be named.
Have you tried any of these? Is there one you have been meaning to pick up, or one you think the judges got wrong? And what do you make of the results overall? Let us know in the comments.
