IWSC Webinar: Liqueurs & Bitters
Um hi everyone thank you for joining uh welcome to the IWC webinar on theur and Bitters my name is Nila gorchakova I’m part of the iwsc marketing team and as our speaker today we have David T Smith um hello again David we’re jumping from one webinar to another this morning just
Had a our session on vodka a couple of minutes ago so um David is our is a member of our Spirits judging committee he is our head judge fly curse and Bitters as well as um an independent Spirits consultant writer and author of multiple books on Spirits uh so really a
Great um person to talk about the recent Trends in lers and beers as well as um to explain a little bit further um about how we judge this incredibly diverse category because we do get a lot of questions um from from companies from Brands about how how we categorize how
We judge uh etc etc uh it really is an exciting diverse category we’ve been seeing an incredible growth growth in entries year on year recently so um it’s a great moment to talk about it really so David over to you thank you very much well hello everyone and thank you thank
You for joining us um yes lures and Specialty and all the other very interesting things that don’t quite fit um everywhere else it’s quite um it’s an exciting thing to judge because you never quite know what you um was going to sort of come across your table as it
As it were um you know it was once was the day where sort of L’s really were limited to uh Lo C house I think I remember one year I ended up judging many years ago but it was sort of 16 odd curell so some were clear and
Some were orange and some were blue and that basically what we had and they’re all very very similar um and we’ve had lots of cises and things like that we still get some of those and and it’s still great to have those now we are really uh things have really you know
Stepped up a gear with getting um things like uh mastika um from Greece I mean that’s that is a lure that’s done very well over recent years and and lots of just different flavor profiles that we wouldn’t necessarily try it’s particularly like here in in Europe or
In the in the UK um lur have really become a way of uh getting a sense of place from different lots of different places around the world and that being sort of infused literally sometimes in the lure and you can kind of get a taste of that when you’re when you’re not in
The uh in the original location where it was made I think it’s fantastic and and some things are very much you know they’re in their very in the sweetness things like you know you like your crem Cassis you know high sugar content that’s needed in that um whereas other things are more towards
Um flavored spirits but they do have some some Sweetness in them but they might not technically be um the full um sugar content that might be typically seen for European lur and I think um that’s one of the fun things about it is you know there is some just and some
Judgment that was made as I said in the um in the Vodka seminar that we had most important thing to me um is to make sure that everything is judged as fairly as possible what I like to describe is everything gets a fair shake and just because someone’s not tried it before a
Judge might not tried this flavor they might not be familiar with pandam or something like that um doesn’t mean that that should be reflected in the score and so we always look and and and look at what these flavor should be and hopefully there’s someone on the table
That is familiar with it or I might often I am and we can have a talk about the sort of thing that you might expect and kind of go from there um uh but yeah there is there’s more discussion I think when we have our judges we’re looking
For people that just appreciate flavor in general they app appreciate complexity um and and balance and mouth fill whatever the the flavor might be because you don’t always know exactly what it is and and also encourage an element of um of open-mindedness I think is is really important and I think um
Dave who’s on the call as well our head of operations we’ll have a discussion beforehand particularly if there’s anything that I think or actually we might need some more information on that or I’d like to try that and maybe give the briefing note before the the judges
Actually come to try it which tends to be better way of doing things then we look out for those sorts of things so there’s definitely some some some good uh teamwork which is much appreciated by me uh again to help and and and it should be by yourselves because it’s
Helping everything get to be judged um as fairly as possible pretend to group I mean this is a big topic that we’re talking about here but when we’re talking about generally like the lur they tend to be grouped with like flavors together so you know we might have lemons together we might have
Orange together and things like that but we also possibly won’t necessarily have every everything in one go because if you have had to try about 24 lemon cellos in one go by the time you get to the end of it you you your the sweetness and the the
Acidity and the oiliness it just totally coats the tongue and then you’re not being able not so easy to be so discernible so actually having a bit of a split for things like that I think it makes makes quite a lot of sense um so very mindful of potential P potential
Palet fatigue in the judges um uh and that includes when we do things like the bitters as well and we talk about the different kind of bitters that there can be because you’ve got things like Campari which is your potable bitter I.E your designed um you could drink it on
Its own just on the Rocks if you wanted to versus your non-potable bitters which would be something like um anger bits anything that’s in like a little Shake bottle or little ey drop where really you don’t drink that on its own it’s there just to kind of enhance the flavor
Of um of a of a cocktail and so we we split those out and we make sure that the judges understand the differences with things like that um you know certain things like absence we make sure that judges have uh and the same with pasce as well anything that needs to be
Loosed you know where you add the water and be cloudy we make sure that they have the facilities that they can do that so that it can be prepared in the the way that is kind of the traditional way of doing it and you get a much better understanding of the complexities
Of the flavors um and again when we talk about things like aquavite which has been I mean aquavite has been a huge boom um recently who make sure people understand the difference types between the Norwegian Styles and the caroway forward Styles and the dill forward styles again to make sure yes the deal
Forward styles are less common but they can be just as fantastic as the Caro on so they again they need to all be treated um treated treated very fairly um we we are conscious about the order in which things are tasted because certainly things like PSE once you’ve
Had that with all that anise there’s not a lot that you can taste afterwards so we’re very conscious of things like that and you know things like um cream lures and the potential impact that they can that they can they can have as well but um cream reur always a highlight of mine
I always enjoy doing the cream reur they are there’s some really exciting things and exciting flavors coming out um um from from all over the world actually which is fantastic um so I’m going to ask Dave our head of operations to answer the first question as it’s quite
Technical and um specific to how we categorize yeah so um as David’s mentioned um earlier um obviously lures can have a different definition depending on where you are in the world um generally we go with the European definition how however we are also aware that obviously in certain other countries there are different
Regulations regarding uh sort of sugar level and such so um for instance uh within Europe um lur generally have to be the minimum 15% avv um however we do often get um from Asian countries some U lures which tend to be slightly lower in ABV um with regards to this particular
Spirit um mentions no added sugar um but a sweetness of 13.2 bricks um if my math is right that corresponds to 132 G per liter um of of sugar um and given the ABV of the spirit is 15% or above this sounds like it would fit quite nicely in
Our lure category um we do also we have a number of other categories so uh every bottle that comes to us in his ENT in the competition is checked by our warehouse team um with wct trained staff and if there’s anything a little bit unusual where we’re not sure it might
Straddle two categories we’ll look into a bit more potentially research with the producers as to which category it would sit best within um and then on the day if there’s still any sort of debate on it it’s often something that we’d speak to our judges and our judging committee
Such as David about um and find really where we think this will sit best um and we’re very we’re very open with our judges and what we we try and encourage um we’re aware that with the huge growth in spirits categories and more and more people doing more Innovative things that
You there more and more bottles out out there that won’t necessarily fit in just one category and may straddle multiple categories and we often get asked by producers does this mean I’ll get marked down if I’m in the wrong category will this be a problem and absolutely not we
Encourage our judges to evaluate the liquid in the glass rather than the category that’s entered and our judges generally accept that uh there may be things that don’t entirely fit into one category or perhaps it would be better in another category um and we always encourage to evaluate on this so you’ll
Never be marked down for entering in uh so-called incorrect category Dave the point I made earlier was that um we encourage our judges to be there to evaluate the spirits rather than worry about the categorization they’re not there to categorize they’re there to evaluate exactly like we very
Much view um the categories entered as more of a if anything it’s more of a help for um our behind the scenes operations team to put the things in a corresponding tasting order that makes sense for the judges rather than saying this is this category this is that it’s
More so as David said earlier um your things like PSE or for example a chili lure that’s particularly strong you wouldn’t want to be tasting that first in the day so we make sure those things are at the end so really uh I I’d encourage producers to look at the look
At the categories as more a guideline for us for how to help us put the tasting order together for the judges rather than a this is a fixed box you must take yeah and I think like in a in a sort of example like this like a little bit like this but let’s
Say that there was a product that um the judges felt wasn’t sweet enough in their mind to be aure that would definitely be something that the the whoever’s the head judge on the day so in this case it would be me would taste and then would make a judgment about and then in
Conversation with Dave we would say well and and my thing to the judges would be well is it a good spirit though and then we can work out the final details of it later but if you’re thinking beautiful flavors and actually the Sugar’s really balanced and and all it’s a beautiful
Texture then make sure that it does that you know that it gets rewarded for all those positive things exactly and I think it’s important to add as well that when we publish and release the results the medals are very much it’s an iwsc gold medal an iwsc silver medal it’s not
A medal within that specific category so the medals don’t say iwsc silver medal in Citrus lure for instance it’s iwsc silver medal so when we do have those uh those entries that may straddle a couple of categories um we’re very much evaluating it as a spirit rather than
Getting the judges too caught up in the categories so um again we very much use it to help us create the tast and orders um and during the judging day the focus is really on the liquid on the glass and if it’s a quality liquid in the glass
That the judges think it’s a gold outstanding or a gold then it will get a gold outstanding or good gold amazing thank you so much Dave for answering this one there was another question submitted in advance that was what has surprised David recently about the market I assume it’s lerson Vitus
Market uh we can’t hear you David some reason hello are you on mute or something good sorry yeah yeah you’re back good question was a tricky question because like I I’ve been exploring so much with the recently but not necessarily because of the market but I’ve been doing
Various um cocktail books where I’ve had to explore different things with L so um I don’t have a much wider appreciation of lur um and there when when a lot of these lur first came out in the 80 80s and you had your things particular in the US you had things like your
Collinses and flips and that you know that sort of that standard six or seven cocktails um when all these fancy lur came over a lot of them came over from France people wanted like a splash of them in whatever that drink was and um they and these the are very expensive
And although people wanted a little splash just to us to their drink out they didn’t want to pay anymore so that’s why they weren’t very popular with the bartenders at that time I was doing some experiments with some PCO SS I was amazed at how just a little
Addition of a lure can really totally change the taste of some drinks so I think like quite often um this is more about selling li really but I think quite often uh lur can be seen oh well it’s on the Rocks we put it in a coffee you do
This and you do that and actually there is this like slightly untapped Market where just this little addition can um make make a make a huge difference so that was quite surprising to me that’s not really so much of a marketing thing but that has been um quite quite a
Surprise um I think one of the other things i’ I’ve enjoyed certainly is um the greater range of cream lur that we’ve seen you know for a long time you think like cream lur didn’t really exist before Bailey’s and now there’s so much choice and from so many different places
Around the world and different styles and you know you got things like Amarula from South South Africa and things like that so I think that’s quite that’s quite exciting to me and like sort of looking at some of them are texturally different as well which for some people is a
Challenge but I quite like it get a spoon and dig in you know um yeah I think that’s probably where that’s that’s generally my my sort of thoughts lur are a funny one when you really dig into one lure and you start really playing with it you discover how exciting it actually
Genuinely is um so hopefully that’s vaguely helped but sorry this bit of a funny one um we’ve got a couple of questions submitted by Daniel um I think both of them sort of um um you know fall into the same answer probably so if you want to address those can you see them
Yep I can see this so the first one is how does the judging panel approach evaluating products with a unique flavor profile or unconventional ingredients um so I mean it kind of depends on on what what it would be so when it’s been things like um mastika
Which I mentioned before um I was familiar with what it tasted like and what the sort of typical taste of it was so when we were before I had did a little briefing before the judges tasted it I didn’t I didn’t have any comment on whether I thought that the product that
They had was good or not I gave an idea of um uh how typical how typical it was I think that’s probably the way so I said this is typical of that flavor and then they could then go on and make a decision as to whether they thought it
Was any good or not um I think that’s probably don’t like as an as a SJC is that as a lead judge I shouldn’t be influencing them but obviously sometimes people do need a little bit of information so that’s helpful we had some um we had some
Iraq um last year which I had some familiarity with but we also had another judge who was very familiar with it and so I had a bit of a discussion with him and he came and joined us for that so we do a little bit of that sort of thing
Usually there’s someone that’s tasted it before quite often it’s me or we can look up What It Is What It generally should be tasting like um in question in answer your particular question let’s just have a look here um uh so there’s a question of an apparao with a berries
Profile whether that has been something like that has entered previously I can’t think I can think of products but I can’t think of anything that we’ve tried we have had a pair of tbos and things like that but I can’t think of anything that Springs to mind
That has red berries with the with the apparao I mean I would if we would if we were if we were I imagine if we were judging something like this and it came through as apptivo with red berries might be the note Dave I imagine it’ be something something along those lines
And then there would be probably there would be a few app paros and before we started the judging I would then go and describe that this is what this is some people might drink it on its own but you got to think like actually this is quite often
Maybe it’s going to be lengthened with sparkling wine or with soda water or things like that so bear bear that in mind as well when it’s when when when you’re judging it that would be the sort of thing I’d say sorry D no I think that
Will make sense and I think yeah with with those things that are a little bit unusual or unique um for instance um we quite often um if the judges are tasting it or David’s tasting it and there is that question like oh this is exciting but not not a traditional appara Evo
Style it’s a little bit unusual um then we obviously maintain the blind tasting element um but if there is something then we’ll often I’ll discuss with David um maybe give some steering as to what what the reason might be for that um and it’s I think it’s really important and
Exciting as well that for these new unique um Innovations and we we do have a few each year where um submitters are asking how would you classify this because there’s not anything else like it in the world and generally I think the judges are really excited to try
This sort of stuff um like that they often bring up questions if they’re doing something slightly different but yeah I think I think it’s a good thing and um yeah the judges are always always very excited to try and evaluate new things um and I think that’s part of the beauty
Of of what we do I think like with something like that let’s say that it for whatever reason it hadn’t said redberries on it typically um I mean I probably would have been trying these might have been trying these anyway but if if if we were sort of alerted to it
Um and I taste it I’d say to Dave well is there any getting some like Berry notes is there anything on the bottle that suggests that that might we might be expecting that and then he’d be able to go and check and say yeah and then like right fine it’s an operativo they
Got the berry notes see what we’re expecting lovely and then score it accordingly so that would be to give you a sort of rough idea of roughly how it would exactly work that’s about it
The IWSC Spirits Judging Committee member David T Smith talks about recent trends in the diverse categories of Liqueurs & Bitters, as well as about the IWSC judging process.
Enter the IWSC 2024:
https://iwsc.net/spirits-categories/all-spirits