World Whisky Awards 2025

In ‘Keeping Busy’ we keep you in the loop with the events and milestones we reach throughout the year. Since our industry-defining win at the 2023 World Whisky Awards of the ‘World’s Best Single Malt’ with our Elements Sherry, we’ve had a deep connection with the WWA. The recent 2025 awards did not disappoint, and indeed highlighted our standing among the great craft producers of the whisky world. 

The World Whisky Awards are often called ‘the Oscars of whisky’. It’s the world’s largest whisky award competition, with hundreds of brands putting thousands of whiskies into the ring for the chance to win the most prestigious awards in the industry. These are followed by the ‘Icons of Whisky Awards’, which recognise the efforts of the real people behind the brands across all facets of the industry. 

In late March 2025 we sent our management team to the awards in anticipation of a big win. Of course we’re chasing the high of our first dramatic recognition back in 2023, but there are many more awards to win across the event and any single one is a great honour. 

Through a long ceremony with plenty of classic British tottering about, we waited, white-knuckled and breath-bated, to see if we would be recognised for all our hard work this year. Finally, to our absolute delight, our Production Team was declared the best Whisky Distillery Production Team in the world for 2025! Across hundreds of distilleries from New Zealand to Nova Scotia it is OUR Production Team of beloved reprobates and hooligans that was recognised as standing above all the rest. 

We let our Production Team out of their cages long enough to write the following in response to their big win: 

M&H’s Production Team wishes you all a sweaty shalom from the production floor! 

It is truly an honor to be recognised as the World’s Best Production Team this year. 

Israel’s whisky industry is barely a decade old. As such, finding production workers with experience in the industry is quite literally impossible. Many of our team members were originally brewers, helicopter mechanics, and farm-hands green from the kibbutz. Under the guidance of Head Distiller Tomer Goren we have not remained simple laborers, but have become specialised craftsmen who churn out world-class whisky with pride. We’re all stillmen, cask managers, handymen, brewers, blenders, and thankfully even tasters! 

We operate under the classic culture of Israeli equity, every team member is answerable to one another, and nobody is afraid to get their hands dirty and back sweaty. We lean on one another, making sure that nobody gets left behind and everyone feels as if the final delicious product is born from their own hard work. 

All this in mind, it’s no wonder we’ve climbed the highest there is to climb (all that practice scaling cask walls we guess)! 

Thank you for enjoying the liquid fruits of our labour, and we’ll see you at the 2026 awards to keep hold of our title!

• Omer Shahar, Eilon Dahari, Or Keshet, David ‘Doobie’ Kalpovsky, Steve Ligoff, Raz Ungar, , Tal Zion Pur, Tomer Goren.

Then came the regional awards. Here the scores of international judges deemed which from our range is currently the best. Our Elements Lightly Peated with its delicate and approachable use of smoky flavor won ‘Israel’s Best Single Malt 2025’. Our Apex Dead Sea, famous for its bold exploration of terroir through maturation in a truly inhospitable climate, won ‘Israel’s Best Small Batch Single Malt 2025’. Finally our intensely decadent Apex Single Cask Armagnac won ‘Israel’s Best Single Cask Single Malt 2025’. 

It’s truly a wonderful collection of accolades to award a smattering of whiskies that we agree are among our best. 

Now we must depart, as we have awards to add to the wall and Production workers to bait back into their cages. Thank you all, and we’ll be back at WWA 2026 for more.