Every year, the International Whisky Competition gathers whiskies from around the world and puts them in front of a panel of expert judges who taste each one blind, without knowing the brand, country, or strength. The judges score every whisky across 15 criteria on a 100-point scale, and the IWC publishes a ranked list of the top 15. The results were finally released today (July 7, 2026).
Today, we’re taking a look at the five that scored highest. Taiwan’s Kavalan took three of those spots, including the overall winner, with Virginia’s A. Smith Bowman and China’s Laizhou filling out the rest. Here’s how each one is made, where it comes from, and why it stood out in 2026.
Kavalan Peatist Oloroso Sherry Cask Single Cask Strength Single Malt Whisky
Award: 1st Place, 96.97 points
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Tasting Notes: Smoky peat, tropical fruit, buttery toffee, charcoal-roasted plums, dark dried fruits, fresh herbs, raisins, figs, savoury-sweet black dates, candied plums, wood, cinnamon, cloves, chocolate, coffee, nuts
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Find Your Next Bottle: $133 / £130
Perhaps unsurprisingly, if you keep up with the IWC each year, Kavalan took the top score of 2026 with a whisky from its Peatist series, a range the distillery introduced to explore peated styles alongside its usual floral, fruity house character.
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READ THE STORYThe malt here is lightly peated and sourced from Europe, and Kavalan adjusts its distillation cut points to hold onto the smoke without losing the fruit it’s known for. This particular release spent its whole life in Oloroso sherry casks, which gives it deep color and dried-fruit richness.
Kavalan sits in Yilan County in northeastern Taiwan, where the warm, humid climate pushes maturation along far faster than it would in Scotland, so the whisky develops a lot of character in a relatively short time. It’s bottled from a single cask at natural strength, without chill filtration or added color.
Kavalan Solist ex-Bourbon Single Cask Strength Single Malt Whisky
Award: 2nd Place, 94.63 points
Tasting Notes: Tropical fruit, vanilla, coconut, oak spices
Find Your Next Bottle: $134 / £131
A better-known Kavalan now, the Solist ex-Bourbon is one of Kavalan’s core single-cask bottlings and one of its most decorated whiskies over the years. It matures in American oak barrels that previously held bourbon, which by U.S. law is aged in new charred oak and then sold on once it’s been emptied.
Because each bottling comes from a single cask, like the Peatist above, the strength varies from one release to the next.
Kavalan is owned by Taiwan’s King Car Group, which built the distillery in Yilan County and released its first whisky in 2008. The house style was shaped in the early years with help from the late Dr. Jim Swan helped establish the Kavalan style and worked out how to mature whisky well in Taiwan’s warm climate. The ex-bourbon expression is a good way to taste that house character without a sherry or wine cask sitting on top of it.
A. Smith Bowman – Cask Strength (Batch #5)
Award: 3rd Place, 94.60 points
Tasting Notes: Candied apples, smoke, ripe plums, cherries, sweet florals
Find Your Next Bottle: N/A
Breaking up Kavalan’s run is a bourbon from A. Smith Bowman, a smaller distillery in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, owned by Sazerac and often described as the sister distillery to Kentucky’s Buffalo Trace. The two are connected by more than ownership. The whiskey in Batch #5 was reportedly first distilled at Buffalo Trace or another Sazerac distillery, shipped to Virginia as high-wine distillate, then distilled twice more at Bowman before going into the barrel.
The exact mash bill isn’t disclosed. It’s a Virginia straight bourbon aged a minimum of 10 years and bottled at 137.6 proof (68.8% ABV), uncut and non-chill-filtered. Master distiller Brian Prewitt has explained that Virginia’s hot summers and mild winters push the proof up as the whiskey ages, since more water than alcohol escapes as the angel’s share.
This is a limited annual release with an MSRP of $99.99, sold mainly through an online lottery with in-person pickup at the distillery, plus a small number of bottles through Sazerac’s distribution network.
Kavalan Solist Madeira Single Cask Strength Single Malt Whisky
Award: 4th Place, 94.37 points
Tasting Notes: Fresh cherry, grape, apple, honey, cinnamon spice, toffee, almond, vanilla, melon, apricot, fig, marmalade, white pepper
Find Your Next Bottle: $226 / £199
Kavalan’s third entry in the top five is another Solist single cask, this one matured in casks that previously held Madeira, the fortified wine made on Portugal’s Madeira Island. As with the rest of the Solist range, it’s drawn from a single cask and bottled at natural cask strength without chill filtration or added color, so the exact strength shifts from one release to the next.
Earlier this month, Kavalan launched a one-liter, first-fill Solist Madeira as an exclusive for travel retail across several Asian markets, including South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan.
According to King Car Group chairman Y.T. Lee, the casks held wine made from Tinta Negra, the main grape grown on Madeira. The distillery describes the whisky as deep marmalade in color, with cherry, grape, apple, honey, and cinnamon on the nose, and fig, melon, apricot, and toffee on the palate.
Laizhou Amontillado Sherry Cask
Award: 5th Place, 93.87 points
Tasting Notes: Herbal notes, brown sugar, floral hints, candied plum, dried apricot, nuts, syrupy sweetness, gourmet chocolate
Find Your Next Bottle: $86 / £75.50
Closing out the top five is a single malt from Laizhou, which stands out as the first Chinese whisky to reach this list.
The name can be misleading, since the distillery isn’t in the city of Laizhou but in Qionglai, near Chengdu in Sichuan province, a part of China with a long history of making baijiu. It’s owned by Shanghai Bacchus Liquor (part of the Bairun group), took five years to build, and was completed in 2021, which makes it a young distillery by any measure.
It’s also a large one, with eight pot stills and, according to The Whisky Exchange, a capacity of around 6 million liters of pure alcohol a year. The team, led by Heriot-Watt-educated distiller Hao Wu, works with a wide range of cask types, from bourbon and sherry to wine and, in one case, Chinese huangjiu rice-wine casks.
This particular release was matured in Amontillado sherry casks, one of the drier, nuttier styles of sherry.
The Rise of World Whisky
Kavalan’s presence across this year’s list is hard to miss, with three of the top five spots and the overall win. This isn’t new territory for the distillery at the IWC. In 2025 it took Whisky of the Year with the Kavalan Solist Fino Sherry Single Cask Strength, so seeing it near the top again fits a pattern that’s been building for a few years now.
It’s also good to see Laizhou here, a young Chinese distillery earning a place alongside more established names.
Between Taiwan, Virginia, and China, this year’s results show that whisky worth paying attention to is being made in plenty of places. Scotch is also notably absent. Have you tried any of these? Are there any you’d like to? And what do you make of this year’s awards? Let us know.
