The Melbourne International Spirits Competition has announced its 2026 results, and today we are looking at whisky. Now in its 14th year, it is run by the same organizers as the New York International Spirits Competition. Every entry is judged blind by a panel of at least four trade buyers, who are told not to award a medal to any spirit they would not import, distribute, buy, or sell in their own businesses.
Nine whiskies took Gold, all with a score of 95. They come from Scotland, the USA, Australia, and, unusually, Argentina.
Let’s take a look at the winners from traditional whisky-making countries, and the winners from the up-and-coming places in the world of whisky.
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Brook Brothers Single Malt Lenga
Award: Gold
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Score: 95 points
Tasting Notes: Vanilla, fresh fruit, toasted cereals, caramel, oak, spice
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Brook Brothers was founded by Matthew Brook, an Australian who worked in mining for many years before starting the distillery in Mendoza.
Brook Brothers was founded by Matthew Brook, who was born in Brisbane in 1971 and worked on mining projects before settling in Mendoza with his wife, Cecilia, in 2014. He has said his first whiskies were terrible, and that it took a year of experimenting before he started getting them right. His distillery in Perdriel has since been named the best in Argentina twice.
The distillery fills 50- and 100-liter barrels at around 51% ABV, and its lenga wood comes from Tierra del Fuego. Some of its lenga releases are fully matured in the wood and others are only finished in it, but Brook Brothers does not say which this one is.
A bit of a mystery, but clearly an up-and-coming distillery with a lot of potential. This, also, is not the only Brook Brothers whisky on this list.
Hunter’s End Australian Whisky
Award: Gold
Score: 95 points
Tasting Notes: Green apple, honey, pear, vanilla, pepper, lemon
Find Your Next Bottle: $56 AUD
Hunter’s End is a Coles Liquor private label from an unknown distillery. It is sold as an Australian grain whisky at 38% ABV, although its entry at the IWSC 2025 listed it as a blended whisky. Australian rules require whisky to spend at least two years in the cask.
The brand story on the Coles website ties the name to John Hunter, the New South Wales governor who banned distilling in 1796.
Today, the Australian Distillers Association says more than 700 distilleries operate in the country.
This whisky is incredibly difficult to find outside of Australia. Domestically, it is priced around $56 AUD. It is interesting to see a grain whisky take a medal, particularly when Australian single malts have been growing in popularity in recent years. Grain whisky has a lot to offer — don’t write it off.
Uncle Nearest 1856 Premium Aged Whiskey
Award: Gold
Score: 95 points
Tasting Notes: Vanilla, brown sugar, oats, citrus, cinnamon, pepper, milk chocolate, mint
Find Your Next Bottle: $50 / £70
Nathan “Nearest” Green was an enslaved man who taught a young Jack Daniel to distill and later worked as head stiller at the Jack Daniel Distillery. Fawn Weaver read about him in The New York Times and launched Uncle Nearest in 2017.
The 1856 is the flagship whiskey in the brand’s stable, and it is named for the year Green is credited with perfecting the Lincoln County Process, the charcoal filtering used for Tennessee whiskey. It blends whiskeys aged 8 to 14 years and is bottled at 100 proof. The brand opened its own distillery in Shelbyville in 2019.
Uncle Nearest has been in some legal hot water this year, with the company placed in receivership and Fawn and Keith Weaver being removed from their positions. You can read all about the ongoing legal battle here.
Loch Lomond Original Single Malt
Award: Gold
Score: 95 points
Tasting Notes: Peach, pear, vanilla, citrus, smoke, biscuit, honey, oak spice
Find Your Next Bottle: $28 / £25
Loch Lomond distillery was built in the mid-1960s inside a former dye works in Alexandria. It is known for its straight neck stills, which have rectifying plates in the neck and can produce spirit at up to around 90% ABV, compared with about 70% from a standard pot still.
The Original uses spirit from both the straight neck stills and the distillery’s traditional swan neck stills, and is matured in first-fill, refill, and re-charred American oak. It is bottled at 40% ABV with no age statement.
When its grain distillery opened in 1994, Loch Lomond became the only distillery in Scotland making both malt and grain whisky on the same site.
Levenside 10 Year Old Single Malt Scotch
Award: Gold
Score: 95 points
Tasting Notes: Candied ginger, sweet peach, citrus, Highland toffee, syrup, orange blossom, honey, sugared almonds
Find Your Next Bottle: $65 AUD
Levenside 10 is another Coles Liquor private label, sold as a Highland single malt at 40% ABV. Coles does not name the distillery on its website, but one IWSC entry lists the whisky under Loch Lomond.
It is a lightly peated single malt, matured in ex-bourbon casks for 10 years.
The whisky also took Gold at the World Whiskies Awards and the London Spirits Competition in 2025. And to top it all off, it was given a Master medal at the 2026 Scotch Whisky Masters.
Domador de Sombras
Award: Gold
Score: 95 points
Tasting Notes: Red fruit, plum, jams, oak
Find Your Next Bottle: Available only in Argentina
Another entry from Argentina. Domador de Sombras is made by Luciano Palumbo at his distillery in Guaymallén, Mendoza. Palumbo, an agronomist who created the Argentina Spirits Awards, won Gran Oro at Chile’s Catad’Or World Spirits Awards in 2023 with a whisky made from local ingredients.
Argentine law requires whisky to be aged for at least two years, and a “Whisky Argentino” category for whiskies made from local ingredients was added in 2023.
Other than describing it as a single malt, the distillery has not published details of how this whisky is made, how old it is, or its ABV.
A mystery, yet again. But, according to MZ Agro, Palumbo is considering exporting his whisky in the future. For now, though, he sees a huge advantage to selling good quality whisky on his home turf.
Brook Brothers Single Malt Roble Francés
Award: Gold
Score: 95 points
Tasting Notes: N/A
Find Your Next Bottle: N/A
This is Brook Brothers’ second Gold at this year’s competition, this time in the $101-plus price band. Matthew Brook told Diario Uno that all of his ingredients are Argentine apart from the French oak barrels, and that he has created 48 different whiskies, including several recipes he says don’t exist anywhere else in the world.
Single Malt Roble Francés is a four-year-old Argentine single malt matured in French oak and bottled at 43% ABV. The producer describes it as being made in a Japanese-influenced style, although it does not publish detailed official tasting notes.
This is probably the most mysterious whisky here, as Brook Brothers seems to be Argentina-only, for now. Perhaps founder Matthew Brook will export to his native Australia in the future.
Uncle Nearest Cognac Cask Copper Label
Award: Gold
Score: 95 points
Tasting Notes: Caramel, stone fruit, almond, tobacco, stone fruit, oak, fig
Find Your Next Bottle: $160 / £128
Cognac Cask is first aged in new charred American oak, then finished in XO Cognac casks from the Fins Bois and Borderies growing areas of Cognac.
It is released in small batches at cask strength, and earlier this year it was named Tennessee Whiskey of the Year at the London Spirits Competition.
Uncle Nearest also bought Domaine Saint Martin, an estate in Cognac’s Grande Champagne region, in 2023.
Uncle Nearest Master Blend Edition, Blend No. 072
Award: Gold
Score: 95 points
Tasting Notes: Cherries, clove, caramel, baking spice
Find Your Next Bottle: $149.99
Last but not least, we have yet another entry from Uncle Nearest.
Master Blend Edition is the work of Victoria Eady Butler, Nearest Green’s great-great-granddaughter, who has been master blender since 2019. Throughout the year she sets aside barrels from every Uncle Nearest release, then blends them for this edition.
Blend No. 072 also took Gold at this year’s International Spirits Challenge and SIP Awards.
What Do You Make of the Results?
A very intriguing collection of winners here, from a perhaps lesser-known competition.
This year’s winners range from Loch Lomond, which dates back to the 1960s, to two craft distilleries in Mendoza. Two Golds went to Coles private labels whose distillers have not been named, and three went to Uncle Nearest while the company is in receivership. Brook Brothers won in both the $40-or-less and $101-plus price bands.
Have you tried any of these? Are there any you would like to get your hands on, and what do you make of the awards? Let us know in the comments.
