Dan Murphy's new spirits awards announced. Along with category insights, including the rapid rise of Mezcal.

Dan Murphy’s has today unveiled the 19 winners in its inaugural Decoded Spirits Awards including best gin, whisky and mezcal, with prices starting from $35. More than 600 spirits were blind tasted by 10 judges over five days to decide the winners.

“Dan Murphy’s Decoded is all about identifying outstanding quality and value for money for customers in the spirits category,” said Spirits Category Manager and Decoded Spirits judge, James Duvnjak.

For the distillers, winning in this category means that their products will be promoted nationally throughout Dan Murphy’s and for some boutique producers this will almost quadruple the stores in which their products are ranged. This includes to boutique producers including:

Illegal Tender Rum – Best Australian Rum for its Distiller’s Cut Rum
Corowa Distilling – Best Australian Whisky for its Characters Single Malt Whisky and
23rd Distillery – Best Coloured Gin for 23rd Distillery’s Violet Gin.

“This means a lot to us as a distillery. Twelve months ago, we were in 10 local Dan Murphy’s stores, and now with the opportunity to be ranged in almost 260 stores nationally, it is very exciting and at the same time daunting for us. It is great to get recognition for the hard work and tireless hours we have put in over the years,” said Corowa Distilling Co’s Managing Director Dean Druce.

Over 300 of the 600 entries to Decoded Spirits were gin and NSW distillery Archie Rose’s Bone Dry Gin was named Best Australian Gin which remains a favourite with customers

Sales of Australian whisky have doubled over the past year and Rum is having a renaissance, Mr Duvnjak said.

However, Dan Murphy’s are reporting that the agave spirit category – which includes Tequila and Mezcal – is the fastest growing of all spirits categories for the drinks retailer.

“Mezcal is increasingly popular among customers thanks to its varying styles and different flavours. Whereas tequila has to be distilled in a specific region from only 100 per cent Blue Weber agave, mezcal can be produced from many different types of agave and so the distillers can explore different styles and flavours outside the realms that Tequila can achieve,” Mr Duvnjak explained.

Although this is the inaugural Dan Murphy’s Decoded Spirits Awards, Dan Murphy’s Decoded Wine awards are now in their third year.

“We launched our Decoded Wine Awards in 2020 because we wanted to make great wines more approachable for our customers. The Awards have been a huge success with customers enjoying discovering great drops, and suppliers getting their products in front of more customers. We are excited to extend the success of the Decoded Awards to the Spirits category, and we hope customers as well as distilleries will discover the value of the Awards,” Dan Murphy’s Managing Director Alex Freudmann said.

All the winners in the Dan Murphy’s Decoded Spirits Awards 2022