Hungarian gin outperforms our best wines at influential international competition

Hungarian handicraft gin brand debuted only in 2019 and has achieved enormous international success since then. Opera Gin Budapest by the First Hungarian Gin Manufactory Ltd received a gold award at the prestigious International Wine & Spirit Competition. Congratulations!

The International Wine & Spirit Competition is an annual wine and spirit competition held in London, founded in 1969. It has grown to become one of the world’s largest and most influential international spirit awards. Submitted products can receive gold outstanding, gold, silver outstanding, silver, or bronze awards. The judging process consists of blind tasting (which can take up to 6 months) and a panel discussion. Entries are judged by panels drawn from 250 specialists from around the world.

Opera Gin Budapest received 96/100 points in the London Dry Gin category. A total of 224 gins were nominated this year in the same category, and Opera received the fourth-highest score in it. 96 is also the highest score any Hungarian product has ever achieved at the IWSC, Forbes writes.

“London Dry is a technical term for gins that start with a neutral alcohol base and have included all their botanicals in the distillation phase of the production. Judges in this category looked explicitly for a well-balanced level of botanicals to support the star of the show, juniper.”