OUTLANDER actor Sam Heughan’s whisky brand has taken top prize at an annual competition.
Master of Malt – an online whisky retailer – hosts its own whisky championship every year, shining a spotlight on spirits from all over the world.
Now, after winning double gold at last year’s San Francisco World Spirits Competition, Heughan’s whisky, The Sassenach, has emerged victorious in the Brands and Bottlers category of the Master of Malt championships.
The Sassenach garnered a staggering 76% of the more than 36,000 votes cast in the category.
After launching in 2020 as part of Heughan’s Great Glen Company business, which seeks to share Scottish products and culture with the wider world, The Sassenach has been hailed for its sweet notes.
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The drink also picked up gold at last year’s International Spirits Challenge – a competition which has been running for more than 25 years.
However, there has been some controversy surrounding the whisky’s latest win with some alleging that fans of the TV show Outlander, in which Heughan stars as Jamie Fraser, mobilised to ensure it wracked up enough votes.
Charlotte Gorzelak, social media manager at Master of Malt, said: “The Master of Malt Whisky Championships is purely run on public vote.
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“We wanted to create a fair competition where we let real people choose who should be crowned their favourite that year.
“Throughout the competition, only votes from our followers and via our website have the power to either knock out or take the brands included to the next round.
“It runs on a poll-based mechanic, which we feel is the fairest way when running things like this. No one can buy votes – at least, not from us!”
It comes after Heughan launched The Sassenach Wild Scottish Gin earlier this year.
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