We’re in the thick of whisky awards season, and judging panels from around the world have been handing out medals to the bottles they rate most highly. A shelf full of gold stickers tells you something about quality, but it doesn’t tell you much about value, and those two things have drifted apart as Scotch prices have climbed over the past several years. Plenty of the most decorated bottles now sit well out of reach for anyone buying on a normal budget. lgZ
So I’ve pulled together seven award-winning Scotch whiskies from recent competitions that you can find for under $100 that I would genuinely spend my money on.
Bowmore 9 Year Old, £32.50 / $44
Award: Spirit Gold Outstanding, 98 points at the International Wine & Spirits Competition 2026
Bowmore is the oldest working distillery on Islay, and its whisky matures in the No.1 Vaults, which sit below sea level. This 9 Year Old is the distillery’s entry-level bottle, and you can find it for a little over £30 or around $44.
The distillery has already demonstrated a strong showing on the awards circuit this year, with its 21 Year Old Sherry Oak being named World’s Best Single Malt at the World Whiskies Awards 2026.
The 9 Year Old spends at least nine years in a mix of hand-selected American oak ex-bourbon casks and European oak Oloroso sherry butts, then goes into the bottle at 40% ABV. You get sweet oak and ripe fruit up front, with a soft thread of smoke running underneath, along with sea salt and cinnamon spice.
For anyone curious about peated Scotch but wary of the heavier Islay drams, this is a friendly, low-cost place to begin and a cheaper way to experience the distillery that, at least according to the WWA, produced the best single malt in the world.
Glen Scotia 12 Year Old, £45 / $60
Award: Double Gold Medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2026
Campbeltown is one of the smallest whisky regions in Scotland, and it isn’t one that most drinkers get to explore very often. Glen Scotia’s 12 Year Old is an easy way in, and you can find it for around £45 or $60.
It’s matured entirely in first-fill ex-bourbon casks, which brings out tropical fruit and a gentle malted-barley sweetness, with the soft salinity you tend to find in Campbeltown whisky sitting alongside it. The bottle picked up a Double Gold Medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2026.
If you’ve worked through the more familiar Speyside and Highland names and want to try a region you don’t know as well, this is a good place to spend your money. You get a genuine taste of Campbeltown without having to hunt down something rare or pay over the odds for it. Glen Scotia almost constantly impresses me.
Glasgow 1770 Peated, £52
Award: Gold Medal at the World Whiskies Awards 2026
I am a huge fan of The Glasgow Distillery, and this peated lowland whisky, I think, shows the perfect balance of peated edges and sherry twists, making for a really interesting dram. You get orange zest and a soft, floral kind of smoke first, then toasty oak and dried fruit, with something nutty and earthy settling in at the end. It’s peated with heather-rich peat from Aberdeenshire, matured in new American oak, and finished for around a year in Pedro Ximénez sherry casks.
A peated Lowland malt is fairly unusual still, since the region is better known for lighter, unpeated whisky. But this just goes to show what happens when peated lowland whisky is done right. Glasgow 1770 Peated was a category winner and earned a gold medal at the World Whiskies Awards 2026, and it sits comfortably under $100.
The Glasgow Distillery started making single malt in the city in 2015, the first to do so there in more than a century. The 1770 in the name goes back to the founding year of the original Glasgow Distillery, so there’s a nod to the city’s older whisky history in there too.
One of the most exciting modern distilleries in Scotland. Please do try their whiskies if you get a chance.
Noble Rebel Hazelnut Harmony, £40 / $53
Award: Double Gold Medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2026
Noble Rebel is a range of blended malts from the Loch Lomond Group, put together by master blender Michael Henry at the Loch Lomond Distillery. The idea behind the range is to build each bottle around a specific flavor rather than around an age or a single distillery, and Hazelnut Harmony is the sweet, nutty one of the group.
The name gives you a fair sense of what to expect. There’s a toasted, nutty sweetness running through it, with honey and vanilla alongside, and underneath that you’ll find sharper notes of grapefruit, lemon zest, and something like almond frangipane and browned butter. It’s a no-age-statement blend, matured in toasted American oak casks, bottled at 46% ABV without chill filtration or added color.
It’s a good amount of flavor to work through for the money, sitting at around £40 or $53, and it picked up a Double Gold Medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2026. If you like the idea of a blend that’s chasing a particular flavor rather than relying on heritage, it’s worth a look.
Scapa 10 Year Old, $62 / £50
Award: Double Gold at the International Spirits Challenge 2026
The most unusual thing about Scapa is its wash still. It’s a Lomond-style still installed in 1959, and it remains the only barrel-shaped Lomond wash still in Scotland still being used to make single malt. The distillery sits on the shore of Scapa Flow near Kirkwall on Orkney, just down the road from Highland Park, and has been part of Pernod Ricard’s Chivas Brothers since 2005.
Despite the coastal setting, the malt is unpeated, and it’s matured entirely in first-fill American oak ex-bourbon barrels. The 10 Year Old came out in 2024 as part of a wider refresh of the range, and it’s bottled at 48% ABV, non-chill-filtered and with natural color. Scapa’s style is gentle and a bit tropical, with a soft coastal sweetness the distillery puts down to the water from Orquil Springs and the lack of peat, which lets the natural sweetness of the barley come through.
It won a Double Gold at the International Spirits Challenge 2026, and at around $62 or £50, that combination of 48% ABV and natural presentation makes it a lot of whisky for the money. Great to see Scapa getting a look in.
Glenmorangie Lasanta 15 Year Old, $48
Award: Best Single Malt Scotch 15 Year Old (90.57 pts) at the International Whisky Competition 2025
For a 15-year-old single malt from a name most people already know, this one is easy to recommend on price alone, sitting at around $48 in the US. It was named Best Single Malt Scotch 15 Year Old at the International Whisky Competition 2025.
Glenmorangie has been distilling in Tain, on the Dornoch Firth in the Northern Highlands, since 1843, and has been part of LVMH’s Moët Hennessy since 2004. The distillery has the tallest pot stills in Scotland, and their height gives the spirit a light, floral, citrus-forward character. Glenmorangie was also one of the early names in cask finishing back in the 1990s.
The Lasanta is the sherry-finished bottle in the core range. The current 15 Year Old, which replaced the older 12 Year Old version, is matured in a mix of bourbon and Oloroso sherry casks and bottled at 43% ABV. You get soft, sweet, sherried flavors of dried fruit and warm spice sitting over that lighter, citrusy Glenmorangie spirit. The name comes from the Scottish Gaelic for warmth.
As an added bonus, the price only increased by a tiny margin when the age statement was upgraded from 12 to 15, meaning three extra years of maturity without an inflated price tag.
Chivas Regal 18 Year Old, $60
Award: Double Platinum at the ASCOT Awards 2026
A classic. Rich and smooth, with dried fruit, buttery toffee, and dark chocolate, and just a wisp of gentle smoke on the way out. It’s the kind of blend that goes down easily whether you know a lot about whisky or not, which is part of what makes it such a safe bet.
Chivas Regal 18 was created in 1997 by then-master blender Colin Scott, and it brings together more than twenty single malt and grain whiskies, each aged at least eighteen years, with its heart coming from Strathisla in Speyside. The casks are chosen from many thousands, and the blend is known for its 85 flavor notes. It’s bottled at 40% ABV.
At around $60 for an 18-year-old blend from a name almost everyone recognizes, it’s an easy gift to give someone whose taste you don’t know all that well. You’re getting genuine age and a familiar label without going over $100, which is exactly what you want when you’re buying for someone else.
There Is Still Value To Be Found In Scotch Whisky
Scotch has gotten more expensive over the past few years, and plenty of the most decorated bottles now carry prices to match. Even so, there’s real value among the award winners if you know where to look, and everything here proves it, spanning roughly $44 to $62.
What’s your best-value award winner? Let us know in the comments.
Read the full article at The 7 Best Scotch Whiskies Under $100, According To Recent Awards
