Well, who is not happy to say goodbye to 2020 today..? It was a very long year to say the least... I had to work less days throughout the year probably since I was 20 years old, traveled absolutely nowhere but spent a lot of time cooking, reading, watching and learning new things and skills instead. I spent hours and hours every day at my desk tasting and writing and discussing online with others. I almost went through my entire sample-yard that I've been masterfully avoiding for years, exchanged new ones with friends, and split and shared bottles with strangers. In the end I ended up uploading 191 reviews onto the blog in 161 different posts in total. That's a lot... Actually the most I ever did in a year in 11 years on this blog.
And today when I sat down to work on the last post of the year I thought maybe I should do something a little different. Thanks for the friendly nudge from Koray, a.k.a. Whisky Monster... In recent years this "top of the year" post was just a simple summary of the year, a short list of top scorers so to speak, but now I see that some of the bottles I tasted were either very limited and long gone, or to be honest insanely expensive... So, I will try this instead: I will list only my top ten from bottles priced under $150 (or equivalent in other currencies) and from bottles which have been made publicly available, in other words not bottled for private clubs and/or individuals. Enough talk, here we go:
I - Whisky of the Year: Compass Box No Name 2 (93)
II - Distillery/Bottler of the Year: Watt Whisky
IV - Whisky-Alternative of the Year: L'Heritier-Guyot Vieux Marc de Bourgogne VSOP (93)
V - brew of the year: 9th Anniversary by Figueroa Mountain Brewing Co.
VII - winery/vineyard of the year (US): Matthiasson Winery, Napa CA
VIII - winery/vineyard of the year (non-US): Envínate, Tenerife Spain
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