A golden era for the world’s best spirits & distillates:
World-Spirits Award & Festival 2012 at the GAST in Klagenfurt

More products, more categories, more distilleries, more countries, more medals, more Spirits of the Year, more awards – and more success: this was the sum total of the WSA 2012. Wolfram Ortner successfully ran the ninth edition of the top-quality award ceremony and exhibition at the GAST in Klagenfurt from 11 to 14 March 2012.

For the first time in the history of the WSA, eight awards were handed out – four for the title of “Distillery of the Year” and another four for the winning spirits in the individual groups.

Within the World Spirits Academy an intensive training in spices, herbs, fragrances and aromas is brand new. Wolfram Ortner will lead interested people into an astonishing world of aromas, intending to sharpen their senses so as to enable them to differentiate fragrances, and impress and recognise individual aromas through special exercises.

The interactivity of the olfactory cells with the identification in the brain, the olfactory cognition, is ‚revitalised’ and sensitised. Different training methods or devices respectively give you access to exciting experiences: 

World-Spirits Award 2012: medals, titles and eight WSA awards for the world’s best distilleries.

More products, more categories, more distilleries, more countries, more medals, more Spirits of the Year, more awards – and more success: this was the sum total of the WSA 2012. Wolfram Ortner successfully ran the ninth edition of the top-quality award ceremony and exhibition at the GAST in Klagenfurt from 11 to 14 March 2012, doing justice to the slogan of “Simply the best in Spirits”.

For the first time in the history of the WSA, eight awards were handed out – four for the title of “Distillery of the Year” and another four for the winning spirits in the individual groups.

The superstars of 2012 were – for the second time in a row – the German distillery Hubertus Vallendar which won two awards and the title “Distillery of the Year”. The Tyrolean distillery Christoph Kössler was named “Distillery of the Year” and also secured the winning position in the cigar distillates category, thereby winning its sixth and seventh consecutive award.

One award – “Distillery of the Year” – went to the Dutch distillery Herman Jansen for its genever products.

The Tyrolean distilleries Gerhard Maas and Günter Oberhofer, as well as the Swiss cherry distillery Arnold Dettling, came out at the top of their groups, winning three additional World Spirits Awards.

The Austrian distilleries Zweiger (egg liqueur), Günter Oberhofer (Granny Smith apple), Kössler (barley cigar distillate) and Maass-Brand (blackcurrant liqueur) received the title “Spirits of the Year 2012” for the outstanding quality of their products. Two titles went to Switzerland – Arnold Dettling AG (wild cherry) and S. Fassbind AG (Crème Brûlée Cream) – and one to the Australian Inner Circle Distillery (Inner Circle Rum Grey).

Exceptional, alternative, trendy and striking products at the WSA 2012

Organic spirits

The range of products available to discerning consumers has been expanded to include a number of new “spirited” products. At the World Spirit Awards, gold went to the organic Bio-Underberg Bitter, the organic orange distillate and the organic lemon spirit from the Pirker distillery in Mariazell, and to the organic Pêcher Mignon (peach) from Apéritiverie Saint Jehan. “Organic” on the outside, high quality on the inside.

The sun rises in Asia

Increasing numbers of producers in Asia and the Far East are taking part in the World Spirit Awards – and are awarded with gold for their excellent products. The stars at this year’s event are Kweichow Moutai from China, the Vietnamese Son Tinh Liquor Distillery (A subsidiary of Highway4 JSC), and United Spirits Limited, the largest Indian spirits distribution company (also the largest in the world!).