The Whisky Championships 2025 have officially kicked off. It’s back. Louder. Bolder. More dramatic than ever.
Once again, we’re pitting some of the most significant names in whisky against each other in a public vote for glory, bragging rights, and ultimate dram domination.
This isn’t a tasting panel or a judges’ roundtable. This is a popularity contest. Pure, undiluted, glorious, tragic, flawed, whisky-fuelled democracy. YOU decide who comes out on top.
How it works
The format’s simple: We begin with 32 contenders. They enter a World Cup-style single-elimination. All roads lead to one crown.
Every few days, a new set of matchups goes live. You vote for your favourite in each one, and the winner advances to the next round. No ties. No comebacks. Once a bottle’s out, it’s out.
From 32 to a Quarter Final to a Semi Final to a Final.
Voting happens across three platforms:
- Our website bracket page
- Instagram Stories
- X (formerly Twitter) polls
Votes across all platforms are combined to determine the winner of each head-to-head fixture. We’ll be announcing results after every round and updating the bracket live so you can track the carnage in real time.
How we picked the 32
Choosing the contenders is no small task. This year, we whittled it down to your most-purchased and ‘trending’ whiskies.
A mix of fan favourites with cult followings, global heavyweights and household names, underdogs and indie legends, and trendsetters, disruptors, and new kids on the block.
The draw itself? Pure randomness. We went full FA Cup draw. That means 32 names in 32 balls, swirled around a big Glencairn glass and drawn one by one. No seedings, no fixes, no mercy. There’s even a dodgy Rod Stewart reference.
The result is a bracket that guarantees wild matchups, early heartbreaks, and dramatic showdowns from Round One.
Why it matters
Aside from being a brilliant excuse to shout about whisky for two solid weeks, the Whisky Championships does a few very important things:
It puts the power in your hands – this is your chance to support the bottles you love, introduce friends to new drams, and stir up a bit of healthy debate in the process.
It’s a celebration of the category – whisky is broad, global, and endlessly fascinating. The bracket format lets us spotlight everything from Islay titans to Japanese elegance, American classics to Nordic trailblazers.
You can’t pay to enter – so many big awards and medals come from pay-to-play models. There’s no brown envelopes here. Contenders are welcome to promote themselves (the more shameless, the better tbh), but everyone is here because they deserve to be. And yes, there were many heartbreaking omissions. A line had to be drawn somewhere.
Week 2 of the campaign also promises exclusive offers, gift-with-purchase deals, and a whole load of rewards for getting involved.
What now?
Head to the Whisky Championships 2025 page, check out the matchups, and start voting. Your favourite needs your support to survive the knockout.
We’ll be tracking the drama, calling the upsets, and celebrating the chaos on all our social channels, so make sure you’re following, commenting, and of course, voting.
May the best dram win.
