What Are the Best Cognac Ratings or Competitions? The SIP AWARDS

SIP AWARDS www.sipawards.com

The Spirits International Prestige (SIP) Awards takes a new approach to beverage competitions by linking producers to the people who matter the most – The Consumers. Hence, SIP provides one of the most valid measures of beverage quality in the world. By working directly with consumers, SIP offers a more realistic opinion and more market driven point of view.

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Their consumer judging panel strips away the layers of elaborate marketing, brand recognition, price point disparity, and most importantly, the bias of established judges. Spirits are judged in a blind tasting review on the characteristics of Aroma, Taste, and Finish.

The +: finally consumers are the judges.

The -: only a few consumers are judging, and therefore even if the validity of the research methodology is high, the reliability of the data set is poor because 100s of people would have to judge to make it reliable.  Reliability is how accurate is your data and validity is about how effectively you are measuring really what you are trying to measure. Therefore, one question: are all consumers equal. Answer is no. Do I want Gin lovers who would never buy a cognac evaluate my cognac. That is the advantage of using experts to judge because they are ‘supposed’ to know.

The reality is that they are not many cognac experts and the one who are really experts in cognac are mostly making it and not judging it. In addition, experts are often so unlikely representative of consumers’ tastes but at least one can expect more consistency among experts. In conclusion, experts favorites are often good products or more that the benefit.