WINNERS OF THE 2025 AUSTRALIAN MALT WHISKY TASTING CHAMPIONSHIP ANNOUNCED:
1st Place: Kimi Kim
2nd Place: Jayden Taylor
3rd Place: Darian Naidoo
4th place: Ryan Sweeney
An electric buzz filled the air on Saturday, the 19th of July at 6pm when Level 8 of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Melbourne saw over 160 guests pour into its neon halls to sign in for the first-ever Australian Malt Whisky Tasting Championship in Melbourne. After 36 years, the Whisky Champs came to Melbourne and, hosted by The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, was five and a half hours of fun, friendship, entertainment, and of course, incredible whisky.
In an extraordinary display, guests from almost every single state in Australia flew across to Melbourne to participate in this triumphant and exciting whisky event with veterans donning their AMWTC outfits and committing to a rigorous training regime in the weeks prior, all for the glory of winning the top prize and being named Australia’s Malt Whisky Tasting Champion.
This bi-annual event has been running since 1989, with The Scotch Malt Whisky Society taking the reins in 2008 and transforming it into a powerhouse event all whisky enthusiasts can look forward to. The competition is simple: each guest is seated in front of eight whiskies and has 30 minutes to taste through and match them to an answer sheet containing nine whiskies — one of which is a red herring.
2025 saw several high scorers, with 11 people heading to the taste-off round (three whiskies poured, six listed, five minutes, all peated), several of which vied for 4th place. With Ryan Sweeney taking 4th in the taste-offs, it was off to the final taste-offs (one whisky poured, eight listed, three minutes, all sherried) between Jayden Taylor and Kimi Kim. A high-stakes energy filled the room as guests spectated and showed their silent support.
Kimi Kim took out 1st place and became Australia’s Malt Whisky Tasting Champion with a perfect 8/8 score in the initial round, 2/3 in the taste-offs, and 1/1 for the final taste-offs. Kimi was awarded the first-place trophy and a bottle of SMWS Cask 72.121 All the right steps, a 40-year-old single-cask, cask-strength Speyside whisky, in addition to a 12-month ‘Whisky for a Year’ membership to the SMWS, all valued at $4398, and generously donated by The Scotch Malt Whisky Society Australia.
Jayden Taylor came in at second place, having gone head-to-head with Kimi in the final taste-offs and was awarded a $750 voucher for a private tasting upstairs at Whisky & Alement in Melbourne, graciously donated by Whisky & Alement co-owners Brooke Hayman and Julian White.
Darian Naidoo was a clear third-place winner from the first round and was awarded a bottle of The Glendronach 18-year-old, generously donated by major sponsor Brown-Forman, valued at $305.
Ryan Sweeney claimed fourth place and received a runner-up prize of SMWS Cask 78.92 Peak sherry — the official bottling of AMWTC 2025.
Once it was over, the afterparty began in The Residence with pop-up bars hosted by this year’s incredible sponsors: Monkey Shoulder and The Glendronach, with some Starward pre-batched cocktails poured at the Grand Hyatt bar. The SMWS’ single-cask whisky stand was in full swing with several Society cask-strength bottlings on pour for guests to enjoy at their leisure.. Live music courtesy of Andy McGarvie, and endless canapes helped build an incredibly warm and ecstatic atmosphere. Spirits were high and abundant as the energy continued well into the night, creating a memory that will stay with guests for years to come.
A massive thank you to all of our sponsors, volunteers, members, and friends who came out to make the first Champs in Melbourne such a resounding success.
About The SMWS
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society began in 1983 when a group of discerning friends in Edinburgh all purchased a single cask of malt whisky from a Speyside distillery and shared it amongst themselves. This was followed by many more cask purchases as the syndicate grew larger. This eventually turned into a club, the SMWS, with members being able to purchase a bottle from each of these single casks of whisky, at a time when the act of bottling single-cask whisky was almost unheard of. What The Society was doing was different to any other club or distillery, it was truly a ground-breaking endeavour and one that has been going strong for over 40 years.
Today, the Society has over 40,000 members around the world with branches in more than 30 countries. The SMWS bottles over 500 single casks a year for its members from a range of more than 165 distilleries.
Members can choose from the world’s widest selection of single-cask, cask-strength whiskies with only the very best selected and approved by The Society’s respected Tasting Panel.
The Society has been active in Australia since 2002, holding unique and fun whisky-tasting experiences across the country all year round for both its members and the general public, and releasing 10+ new casks of whisky exclusively to our members every month.
The Australian Malt Whisky Tasting Championship is a blind tasting competition that has been running in Australia since 1989. It was held annually in Adelaide from 1989 until 2002, then was in recess for six years until The Scotch Malt Whisky Society resurrected the competition in 2008. It is open to national and international competitors and is now a biennial event held in Sydney (and Melbourne as of 2025), all hosted by The Scotch Malt Whisky Society.
