Today, the International Spirits Challenge released its 2026 competition results, and five Scotch whiskies took home Double Gold medals.
The International Spirits Challenge was founded in 1995. Now in its 31st year, it sees blind judging carried out by panels of master blenders, distillers, buyers and consultants. Medals run from Bronze through Silver and Gold up to Double Gold.
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This year’s five Scotch winners cover a wide range of styles: a single malt from Orkney, a 31 year old release from a recently revived Lowland distillery, a 25 year old blend, a travel retail-exclusive 12 year old from the Highlands, and a core range expression from Islay’s youngest active distillery.
So, here is everything you need to know about the 5 best Scotch whiskies from this year’s International Spirits Challenge.
Scapa Orkney Island Single Malt 10 Year Old
Medal: Double Gold
Tasting Notes: Pineapple, mango ice cream, crème brûlée, honey-topped pancakes, cinnamon buns, citrus peel, stewed apple, warming spices, vanilla custard, banana, charred oak, milk chocolate
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Find Your Next Bottle: $62 / £50
Scapa Distillery sits on the shore of Scapa Flow near Kirkwall on Orkney, just down the road from Highland Park. It was founded in 1885 and has been part of Pernod Ricard’s Chivas Brothers since 2005.
The most unusual feature of the distillery is its wash still, which is a Lomond-style still installed in 1959. Originally designed with adjustable copper rectification plates to allow different spirit styles, it remains the only barrel-shaped Lomond wash still in Scotland used to make single malt. The malt is unpeated despite the coastal setting, with maturation taking place exclusively in first-fill American oak ex-bourbon barrels.
The 10 Year Old launched in 2024 as part of a wider repositioning of the Scapa range in addition to a new core lineup of 10, 16 and 21 Year Old expressions. It is bottled at 48% ABV, non-chill-filtered and with natural colour.
Scapa is known for its gentle, coastal, and tropical style, which it attributes in part to the water from Orquil Springs that is used for mashing and the lack of peat involved in drying, bringing out the naturally sweet notes in the barley.
After flying under the radar for decades, Scapa is seeing something of a resurgence with its new core range.
Rosebank Remarkable Cask Release One
Medal: Double Gold
Tasting Notes: Redcurrant, cacao nibs, chocolate lime, almond, orange sponge, banoffee, vanilla, raspberry, soft oak, dried fruit, blackcurrant dram, lavender, spice
Find Your Next Bottle: Global Travel Retail
Rosebank Distillery sits on the banks of the Forth and Clyde canal at Camelon, near Falkirk, and was long regarded as one of the finest Lowland distilleries in Scotland. It was mothballed by United Distillers in 1993 and reopened by Ian Macleod Distillers in 2023, with the first new spirit distilled on 5 June that year.
The distillery is known for its grassy, floral, and fruity Lowland style, which comes from triple distillation paired with worm tub condensers. Triple distillation usually produces a lighter, more delicate spirit, while worm tubs tend to give a heavier, oilier character. The combination of the two is unusual and is a large part of why pre-closure Rosebank built such a loyal following.
The Remarkable Cask Release One is a 31 year old vatting of five hand-selected casks from the original distillery’s pre-1993 stock, bottled at 46.8% ABV and limited to 700 bottles worldwide as a Global Travel Retail exclusive. It is the first instalment of a planned five-year Remarkable Cask Collection.
Isle of Skye 25 Year Old Blended Scotch Whisky
Medal: Double Gold
Tasting Notes: Oaky ginger, vanilla, red apple, citrus, malt, peat smoke, apricot
Find Your Next Bottle: $357 / £225
Despite the name, Isle of Skye is not a single malt from Skye but a blended Scotch from Ian Macleod Distillers. The blend was originally created in 1933 and acquired by Ian Macleod & Co in 1963, the same year the family business took the Macleod name.
The 25 Year Old is a high-malt blend, built around peated island malts alongside Speyside and Highland malts and a portion of grain whisky. It is matured in a combination of ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks and bottled at 40% ABV. It sits in the middle of an unusually deep core range that runs from 8 to 30 years old.
This is not the first time the 25 Year Old has been recognised. In 2025, it was named Best Blended Scotch in the 16-year-old category and Best Overall Blended Scotch Whisky at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
Glengoyne 12 Year Old First Fill Edition
Medal: Double Gold
Tasting Notes: Vanilla custard, green apple, dried fruits, gentle spice
Find Your Next Bottle: Global Travel Retail
The defining feature of this expression is in the name. Every cask used in the maturation is a first-fill, split between American oak ex-bourbon barrels and Oloroso sherry casks. First-fill casks tend to impart more flavour and colour than refill ones because they are more active, so using them exclusively at the 12 year old price point is somewhat uncommon.
Glengoyne is owned by Ian Macleod Distillers, who bought the distillery from Edrington in 2003. It sits at the foot of the Campsie Fells, just north of Glasgow, with its stills technically in the Highlands and its maturation warehouses across the road in the Lowlands. The distillery has long marketed itself on the slowest distillation in Scotland, and uses an unusual configuration of one wash still and two spirit stills.
The 12 Year Old First Fill Edition launched in July 2025 as a Global Travel Retail exclusive, replacing the previous 10 Year Old First Fill Edition in the Spirit of Time collection. It is bottled at 43% ABV. It won Gold at the International Spirits Challenge 2025 before taking Double Gold this year.
Ardnahoe Bholsa
Medal: Double Gold
Tasting Notes: Red fruits, orange zest, peat smoke, raisins, dates, plums, Islay peat, pepper
Find Your Next Bottle: $72 / £58
Ardnahoe is currently Islay’s youngest active distillery, sitting between Caol Ila and Bunnahabhain on the island’s northeast coast. It was founded by independent bottler Hunter Laing, with the first spirit running off the stills in October 2018. Jim McEwan, formerly of Bowmore and Bruichladdich, came out of retirement to oversee production.
Two production features stand out. Ardnahoe uses the only worm tub condensers on Islay, which would normally make for a heavier, meatier spirit, but pairs them with the longest lyne arms in Scotland at 7.5 metres. The longer lyne arms give the vapour more contact with copper before condensation, which helps lighten the spirit back up. The malt is peated to around 40 ppm.
Bholsa is the distillery’s sherry-led core expression, named after the Bholsa caves on Islay’s north coast and matured predominantly in Oloroso sherry casks. It is bottled at 50% ABV.
Have You Tried Any Of These Award-Winning Scotch Whiskies?
That is the full set of Scotch Double Gold winners from the International Spirits Challenge 2026.
Have you tried any of them? Let us know what you thought in the comments, or tell us which whiskies you think should have made the list instead.
