There are many spirits competitions and ratings in the world. From the local wine & spirits fairs to the international event organized with selected judges highly regarded for their experience and know-how in the industry, and also independent raters who are ratings spirits in their own media such as Dias-Blue or Pacult.
I will only reference the spirit events which are internationally representative and commonly used as reference by the industry trades and and also by consumers. The concept of rating spirits is often an offspring of ‘Wine ratings’ which they are 100 times many more ratings for. Most of these events/competitions were originally wine competitions which opened up to spirits or encouraged spirit submissions for ratings.
Ratings are not as influent for spirits as they are for wines. High ratings may help but how much they help is insignificant in the scheme of things. On the other hand ratings can be explain more than 50% of the reasons for why a wine is successful.
Wine Consumers and distributors are hand-in-hand rewarding high ratings.
The spirit trade is more influenced by the advertising budget or celebrity endorsement for instance.
Reality Rule 101:
. Take the most influent raters, have them rate a wine 100/100 points and this wine sales will skyrocket running out of stock regularly. If the wine is decent it will sustain high sales. If the wine is bad it will not sustain growth. But the head start from the rating will be noticeable.
. Take an outstanding wine and rate it low or without rating at all, it will have to sell cheap and it will not get any consumer followings and no trade support.
. Take the most influent raters, have them rate a spirit 100/100points and little may happen.
. Take an outstanding spirit and rate it low or without any ratings, this spirit will not rise and disappear from the market.
They are exceptions to these rules but these are the rules!
In my next posts, I will review the most prominent competitions in the world.
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