Friday, December 16, 2011

Who the Hell is Judging These Alcohol Tasting Competitions?

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For the past several months on my daily commute to work I have been greeted by an advertisement that I eventually had to follow up on.  The sign claimed that Iceberg Vodka was voted a gold medal at the 2009 Cannes Vodka competition.  Now I regard Iceberg as a lower level offering on par with Smironoff and Absolute so I was suprised by such a prestigous award.  I figured that maybe I could save some money on the Belvedere I typically purchase and make the switch to this inexpensive yet ‘highly premium’ vodka.  Not so fast.

Iceberg and the entire North American distillery industry should be ashamed.  A lot of these awards and competitions are a farce to drive up sales.  I guess the only way to determine what is good is to sample a variety of alcohols until you stumble upons something you like.

For the past several months on my daily commute to work I have been greeted by an advertisement that I eventually had to follow up on.  The sign claimed that Iceberg Vodka was voted a gold medal at the 2009 Cannes Vodka competition.  Now I regard Iceberg as a lower level offering on par with Smironoff and Absolute so I was suprised by such a prestigous award.  I figured that maybe I could save some money on the Belvedere I typically purchase and make the switch to this inexpensive yet ‘highly premium’ vodka.  Not so fast.

Now, I haven’t tried Iceberg Vodka and after investigating this ‘award’, nor will I ever.  I did some research and there was a very casual vodka tasting event at the Cannes FILM festival and here is the list of winners. Now I don’t even care who won that competition as the number of companies participating was tiny, the event was informl and was more of a PR stunt rather then a real competition.  Even more notable is the fact that Iceberg Vodka wasn’t even a participant.

I contacted the company asking them why they had this claim in their sign hoping that I had overlooked something but was completely ignored by them.  Its too bad they didn’t realize their poor customer service skills would result in negative publicity on a popular bartending website.

As a result of this entire ordeal I figured JoeBartender.com would hold its own tasting competition.  Real people testing real Spirits.  Lets get a consumers opinion on what is good and what isn’t, forget about these weird competition with so called experts.  What matters is when people like you and I order a Vodka water or a shot of Whiskey at the bar it tastes great.  Now despite emailing every North American distillery asking them to participate I did not get one company willing to enter.  What a crock!

Iceberg and the entire North American distillery industry should be ashamed.  A lot of these awards and competitions are a farce to drive up sales.  I guess the only way to determine what is good is to sample a variety of alcohols until you stumble upons something you like.

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