The London Spirits Competition has been raising the bar for spirits judging since its first edition, and the 2026 competition is no different. Now in its ninth year, the international competition pulled in entries from more than 30 countries and assembled a judging panel of over 70 trade professionals to seek out the best whiskies of 2026.
The LSC believes that what sets this competition apart is that it judges every entry not just on taste, but on value for money and packaging too, so the winners reflect what works in the real world.
The whisky category produced some outstanding results this year, with four bottles earning Double Gold medals and Special Awards. They come from four different countries, belong to four different style categories, and are made in very different ways.
Below, we take a look at the whiskies that clinched top honours and Special Awards at the London Spirits Competition 2026.
About the London Spirits Competition 2026
The London Spirits Competition was founded on a straightforward idea: that spirits should be judged the way trade professionals actually buy them. Quality matters, but so does value for money and packaging. A spirit that scores well on all three is one that will genuinely sell, and that is what the LSC sets out to find.
The 2026 competition drew entries from more than 30 countries with styles encompassing gins, whiskies, liqueurs, rum and vodka.
Must Read Stories
The judging panel brought together over 70 industry experts, including some of the most respected names in the business. Among them were Stephanie Macleod, Master Blender and Director of Blending, Scotch Whisky for Bacardi; Billy Leighton, Master Blender Emeritus at Irish Distillers Pernod Ricard; Craig Wallace, Whisky Creation Leader and Master Blender at Diageo; and Nick Larson-Bell, Senior Spirits and Beer Buyer at Harvey Nichols, who had this to say about the experience:
“I spent a couple of days at LSC, judging some fantastic spirits from across the world! It is a wonderful judging event that takes into account not just the liquid, but also the packaging and retail price. A great one for us buyers!”
Sid Patel, CEO of the London Spirits Competition, summed up what the competition looks for in a winner:
“At the London Spirits Competition, a winning spirit must excel in quality, offer outstanding value for money, and be packaged in a way that truly connects with today’s consumer. What makes this competition unique is that all products are judged by the highest level of trade professionals — bartenders, bar managers, and buyers — who understand what sells and what delights customers. Our winners represent the very best of the global spirits industry.”
Root Shoot American Single Malt 4 Year Old Bottled-in-Bond
Special Awards: Spirit Of The Year United States of America, Whisky Of The Year, American Single Malt Whiskey Of The Year
Score: 97
Medal: Double Gold
Tasting Notes: Rich pastry, baking spice, faint cocoa dust and minty, spicy botanicals. Bright finish balanced with deep tones of leather and forest floor.
Find Your Next Bottle: $54.99
Root Shoot is the spirits arm of Root Shoot Malting, a craft on-farm malthouse built in 2016 on Olander Farms, a fifth-generation family farm near Loveland, Colorado that has been in operation since 1926.
Founder Todd Olander launched Root Shoot Spirits in 2023 with this Bottled-in-Bond American Single Malt as its debut release. The ethos is built around regenerative agriculture and hyper-local sourcing. Every grain is grown and malted on the farm.
The whiskey is contract-distilled just a few miles from the farm. It is aged four years in new charred American oak barrels, bottled at 50% ABV with no cask finish, and meets all four requirements of the 1897 Bottled-in-Bond Act.
It also sits within the American Single Malt category, which only became an official TTB classification in January 2025.
Root Shoot is a core annual release, with each vintage larger than the last. Distribution is currently concentrated in Colorado, with wider availability through US online retailers.
This is not Root Shoot’s first year at the top, with the same whiskey being named American Single Malt Whiskey of the Year at the London Spirits Competition in 2025.
Maker’s Mark Bourbon Cask Strength
Special Awards: Straight Bourbon Of The Year
Score: 96
Medal: Double Gold
Tasting Notes: Dark cherry, toasted oak, vanilla, salted caramel, dark chocolate, spices
Find Your Next Bottle: $54.99
Maker’s Mark needs no introduction, really, but I will give one regardless.
Maker’s Mark has been made at Star Hill Farm in Loretto, Kentucky, since founder Bill Samuels Sr. purchased the site in 1953. The distillery is now a National Historic Landmark.
Its standard expression is perhaps one of the most popular bourbons to come out of Kentucky.
The Cask Strength expression uses the same mash bill as every other Maker’s Mark: 70% corn, 16% soft red winter wheat, and 14% malted barley. The use of wheat rather than rye as the flavouring grain is one of the defining characteristics of the house style.
Distillation runs through a copper column still and copper pot doubler before the spirit goes into new charred American oak barrels for maturation.
Cask Strength carries no finish and no additives. It is bottled straight from the cask, with ABV varying batch to batch.
The most recent batch is 7 years and 2 months old, bottled at 110 proof.
It is a permanent core release, widely available across the US, UK, EU, and Australia.
The Donn Single Malt Irish Whiskey
Special Awards: Single Malt Whiskey Of The Year
Score: 96
Medal: Double Gold
Tasting Notes: Orange zest, digestive biscuits, caramel, pecan nuts and marzipan, dark chocolate, caramel, toasted walnuts with great viscosity, prune
Find Your Next Bottle: Join the waitlistÂ
The Donn is the flagship release from The Craft Irish Whiskey Co., a Dublin-based luxury whiskey house founded in 2018 by Jay Bradley. The company has a distinct focus on crafting and selecting high-quality casks for maturation, as well as under-filling said casks to allow for more oxygen during maturation.
The whiskey itself is an Irish Single Malt, triple-distilled in copper pot stills from 100% malted barley, and matured across a complex sequence of casks over roughly seven years.
That programme moves through ex-bourbon barrels, tawny Port pipes, heavily toasted ex-bourbon casks, and a final finish in Pedro Ximénez sherry casks ranging from 64 to 225 litres. It carries no age statement and is bottled at 46.15% ABV.
Each release is a numbered, limited edition. The inaugural 2023 edition ran to 4,477 bottles. I cannot find any reference to later releases of The Donn, with the assumption being that the 2023 release is the winning expression.
Titanic Distillers 5 Year Old Pot Still Irish Whiskey: PX Finish
Special Awards: Pure Pot Still Irish Whiskey Of The Year
Score: 96
Medal: Double Gold
Tasting Notes: Rich fruit cake, liquorice, dark chocolate, pepper
Find Your Next Bottle: N/A
Titanic Distillers is based in the Thompson Graving Dock Pumphouse in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter, a listed 1911 building that once housed the pumps used to drain the dry dock where the RMS Titanic sat before her maiden voyage.
Founded in 2018, the distillery opened in April 2023 and fired its own stills for the first time that August.
This 5-year-old expression is part of the Pumphouse Series, a line of experimental small-batch bottlings designed to tide the brand over while Titanic’s own distillate comes of age.
As Head Distiller Damien Rafferty explained at launch on LinkedIn: “This release is a huge moment for the brand, as it marks the first bottling of a cask that we have sourced and finished here, on-site, at Thompson Dock. The Pumphouse series allows us to find, blend, finish and play with unique whiskeys and spirits before our own new make spirit comes of age.”
The whiskey is a Pot Still Irish Whiskey, made from a mash of malted and unmalted barley finished in Pedro Ximénez sherry casks at the Pumphouse. It was limited to 350 bottles and has since sold out.
A Global Category in Fine Form
The 2026 London Spirits Competition whisky results cover a lot of ground. A Colorado farm turning its own barley into a Bottled-in-Bond single malt. A Kentucky bourbon institution adding an age statement for the first time in over seven decades. A Dublin luxury house building a complex cask programme around sourced Irish spirit. A Belfast pumphouse finishing its first ever cask on a site that once serviced the Titanic.
What they share is that all four scored 96 or above, earned Double Gold medals, and were picked out by a panel of over 70 trade professionals who buy, blend and serve whisky for a living. That is a meaningful endorsement for any bottle, regardless of where it comes from or how it is made.
The full results from the London Spirits Competition 2026 are available at londonspiritscompetition.com.
