A Major Flaw in the OSWAs (Online Scotch Whisky Awards)

Forgive me Malty Menschen, but I’d like to go on my own "Ralfy style" personal little whisky rant / Soap box.

For those who are new to the Whisky world, let me explain to you what the OSWAs are all about. As you will soon come to realise, most Whisky magazines and online whisky resources are actually run by industry marketing departments and are nothing more than elaborate advertisements for one multinational spirits brand or another. The same goes for annual whisky awards. Until, that is, Ralfy Mitchel of veteran YouTube whisky channel Ralfy.com and Roy Duff of one of the biggest whisky channels out there, namely "Aqvavitae" and his famous weekly vPub live broadcasts, got together to devise a genuine Whisky awards which truly reflects the opinions of the online Scotch Whisky enthusiasts and non partisan independent experts. So, in 2020, at the height of Covid, the OSWAs - Online Scotch Whisky Awards was born. It was met with tremendous positive response by the online whisky enthusiasts community as well as the Scotch Industry itself. By any objective opinion, it has quickly become a genuine influential force in the industry and gained tremendous and well deserved respect throughout the whisky world.

As you have probably already realised, I am a huge fan of the OSWAs and will go so far as to say that I truly believe that they are the only genuinely informed and trustworthy Scotch Whisky Awards in the entire industry. Many distilleries and professionals within the Scotch Whisky industry seem to agree with me.

However, (yes, here it comes...) there is in my opinion, a major flaw in the OSWAs which encourages damaging accusations of snobbishness upon the organisers and claims of ignoring the real world. The OSWAs should be all about celebrating the wonderful world of Scotch Whisky. An opportunity to highlight the best Scotch Whiskies one can buy. And to this point, there is a whole category of the market which is being ignored and another OSWAs category which has been completely mislabelled (IMHO)!

I'm talking about the so called "Entry Level Single Malt" Category! I'm sorry Roy and Ralfy, but in the real world, there is no way that Ardbeg 10, Arran 10, Bunnahabhain 12, Deanston 12, Highland Park 12 (expressions chosen for nominations in 2021/2)... are Entry level single malts! They are simply too expensive for most first-time newbies.

There is, as we all know, a whole group of genuine Single Malt Whiskies on the shelves which are considerably cheaper.

Glen Moray Classic, Glen Moray 12, Glen Moray First-Fill, Auchentoshan American Oak, Arran Barrel Reserve, Deanston Virgin Oak, Glencadam American Oak Reserve, Glenfiddich 12, Glenfiddich 12 American Oak, Glenmorangie 10 Original, Tomatin Legacy, Tomintoul 10, Loch Lomond Original, Bowmore No.1 etc, are just some examples of real genuine Single Malt Scotch Whisky all under £30 in most markets around the world, and it's from this group which newbies will be choosing from.

OK, so most of them are bottled at legal minimum 40% abv, most but not all are Chill Filtered and not natural Colour. BUT they are the Single Malt Scotch whiskies that real people actually buy as their first Entry Level gateway bottles. Why does the OSWAs ignore them as if they don't exist?

Admittedly, some are awful but others are actually highly drinkable whiskies, delicious straight from the bottle and very well balanced. My personal favourites are Deanston Virgin Oak, Arran Barrel Reserve, Glencadam American Oak and Glenfiddich 12 American Oak. All very competent and worthy of recognition as making a positive contribution to the Single Malt Whisky market.

Mislabelling this category with whiskies which are clearly NOT Entry Level and failure to include the true gateway Single Malts was a major floor in the OSWAs. It's a situation which should, IMHO have been addressed. 

So, what happened? In 2022 they scrapped the whole category and replaced it with "Best Value Whisky". This still has the effect of ignoring this whole section of budget level Single Malts and actually compounds the problem by including into the category, objectively premium price level Single Malts which are nevertheless considered "value for money".

The OSWAs should not be just for the advanced enthusiast. It should also be there to inform the Newbies as to what the best entry level / gateway Single Malts are out there. We owe it to them. After all, we  were all newbies at some point.

The solution? To re-establish the Entry Level category but only include those expressions which are truly gateway affordable Single Malt whiskies.