The 10 Best Whiskeys of 2025
Wild Turkey
Every year, I try a few hundred different whiskeys in all categories, including single malt scotch, cask-finished rye, Japanese rice whisky, Irish single malts, and affordable craft bourbons. It’s a lot.
For my weekly column Taste Test, I’m looking across all categories and styles from major brands and small craft distilleries from around the world to critique the most interesting expressions. Sometimes they can be very good, like the selections below, or sometimes they can be pretty bad (please stop finishing whiskey in Amburana wood, and maybe we don’t need another hazmat proof bottle). These are the 10 best whiskeys of this year that received my highest ratings on a scale of 1 to 100. My top picks range from expensive unicorns to much more readily available bottles, with a very unique cask-finished rye and a sherry bomb single malt in the mix. Check it out and catch up on something you missed or find out about something new, and happy bottle hunting.
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WhistlePig The Boss Hog XII: Feather & Flame
Image Credit: WhistlePig WhistlePig’s annual Boss Hog release is always different, always unique, and usually kind of weird. Case in point is the 12th edition, Feather & Flame, a fascinatingly spicy whiskey that was inspired by some lesser known Mexican alcoholic beverages—pulque and xocolatl. The WhistlePig team seasoned barrels with their own version of pulque made from cacao and chili peppers, then filled them with aged rye to finish for a couple of weeks before bottling the whiskey as a cask-strength, single-barrel expression. The resulting whiskey is striking and very tasty. There is a high level of spice on the palate, but it’s more of a pleasant tingling heat than one that causes any palate fatigue, and it comes with a notable presence of dark chocolate. The rye’s intrinsic black pepper, vanilla, oak, and maple notes also shine through, making this a thoroughly engaging sipper.
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Tamdhu 21 Year Old
Image Credit: Chris Lomas Do you love sherry bombs? If so, have I got a bottle for you—the new Tamdhu 21 Year Old, the oldest whisky to join this distillery’s core lineup (and the first of this age), and one that will satisfy every sherry-loving cell in your body. This new single malt was aged entirely in European and American oak sherry casks, resulting in a palate that is rich, decadent, and vibrant despite its elevated age. Dried fruit immediately jumps out as you sip, as you might expect, along with a range of flavors like baking spice, caramel, and milk and dark chocolate. There are even some savory notes that pop, like sweet and sour barbecue and a bit of umami soy sauce, but these are evened out by sweeter and spicier flavors like vanilla, black pepper, and honey.
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Glengoyne White Oak 24
Image Credit: Glengoyne Glengoyne is not the best known name in scotch whisky here in the U.S., but this 24-year-old expression should help to change that. Most of the whisky made at the distillery is aged in sherry casks, but this new single malt was aged mostly in bourbon barrels, along with a small amount that spent time in virgin oak. The result is spectacular, a well-aged whisky with a burst of tropical fruit at the front of the palate, followed by notes of vanilla, green apple, honey, dark and milk chocolate, and baking spices like cinnamon and nutmeg.
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Jack Daniel’s 14 Year Old
Image Credit: Jack Daniel’s A few years ago, Jack Daniel’s started releasing age-stated whiskeys, something it hadn’t done for about a century. First there were 10 and 12-year-old whiskeys, and then this year a 14-year-old arrived—and it was the best thing to come out of the distillery in a long time. That’s not just because it’s the oldest, because after all age doesn’t equal quality. It’s an intensely flavorful Tennessee whiskey that adds new layers to the familiar Jack profile, with notes of barrel char, leather, tobacco, red berries, burnt orange peel, and dark chocolate. This bottle is selling at a hefty markup on the secondary market, but it’s worth the splurge if you have the means.
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Frank August Small Batch Rye
Image Credit: Frank August With so many new whiskey brands out there, even during what by many accounts is a softening market, what makes one stand out? The answer is simple: quality of the liquid and price. The new Small Batch Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey from Frank August might veer towards the expensive side, but this is one of the best new ryes of the year. There is a nice balance of sweetness and spice on the palate, along with notes of dark chocolate, espresso beans, brûléed caramel, toasted coconut, black pepper, cinnamon, clove, maple, and a bit of menthol on the finish. I’ve sipped this neat and over a large ice cube, and both are superb ways to enjoy this rye, but it also works splendidly in a Manhattan, providing just enough spice and heat to counteract the bitters and vermouth. In other words, this whiskey is a versatile workhorse that is also delicate and complex enough to save for sipping.
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Heaven Hill Master Distillers Unity
Image Credit: Heaven Hill There’s been a lot going on at Heaven Hill over in 2025. This year marked the 90th anniversary of this venerable Kentucky institution, so to mark that occasion it released a limited-edition bourbon called Heaven Hill Master Distillers Unity. And it is safe to say that this is one of the best whiskeys the distillery has released in years—and among the best any distillery released in 2025. It’s a blend of bourbons distilled by different master distillers, ranging in age from six to 34 years old and bottled at 107 proof. What a bourbon this is, with notes of chocolate, apple, maple, plum, strawberry, raw grain, spice, bubble gum, oak, raisin, and just a touch of dragon fruit on the palate. This is a limited release that might be hard to get your hands on, but you’ll be happy if you do.
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Remus Gatsby Reserve
Image Credit: Ross & Squibb This bourbon is so good, it appeared in my Taste Test column twice this year—the 2024 release at the very beginning of the year, and the new 2025 release just this month. MGP might have hit a rough patch, as have many in the whiskey industry, but the Indiana distillery continues to release some truly excellent whiskey, the best of which often comes out under its own in-house brands and not for its many outside contracts. Case in point is Remus Gatsby Reserve, MGP’s annual top-tier bourbon that continues to stand out in a very crowded field. It’s a 15-year-old bourbon bottled at cask strength 102.8 proof made from MGP’s 21 percent rye mashbill, which provides a nice bit of spice to balance the whiskey’s sweetness. The palate is rich with a textured mouthfeel and notes of cherry syrup, maple, caramelized brown sugar, vanilla custard, licorice, toasted oak, and cola, and there’s a nice bit of heat as you sip.
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Redemption 18 Year Old Bourbon
Image Credit: Redemption Whiskey The headline for this review summed it up—this 18-year-old bourbon is better than Pappy Van Winkle 23. Make no mistake, 18 years is a long time to age a bourbon, and it can go wrong if overpowering notes of tannic oak enter the picture. That’s not the case here at all—Redemption 18 Year Old, which is sourced from MGP in Indiana from two different mashbills, is vibrant and complex. Look for notes of cherry, brown sugar, black pepper, pipe tobacco, leather, and flamed orange peel. And at 103.4 proof, there’s some nice warmth on the finish that doesn’t scorch your tongue. This is a bit of a splurge (although it’s still much cheaper than Pappy), but well worth the cost.
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A. Smith Bowman Hungarian Oak
Image Credit: A. Smith Bowman A. Smith Bowman is a sister distillery to Buffalo Trace located in Virginia (both are owned by parent company Sazerac). The Oak Series started in March of 2024 with the French Oak expression, a fantastic whiskey (not a bourbon) that made my “best of” list for that year. That was followed by the American Oak expression, a bourbon that had a lot of potential but was overshadowed by its incredibly high proof. Hungarian Oak is the third and final release in the series, and also the best. At 115 proof, the effects of the whiskey being aged for 12 years in charred Hungarian oak barrels is pronounced and superb. It’s sweet but not dessert-like, with notes of toffee, cookies and cream, cafe latte, Mary Jane candy, flamed orange peel, salted dark chocolate, and some ripe stone fruit on the palate.
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Wild Turkey Master’s Keep Beacon
Image Credit: Wild Turkey Wild Turkey’s Master’s Keep collection came to an end this year, and what a way to go out with the release of Beacon, the best in the series and our highest-rated whiskey of the year—the only one to notch a 99 in a review. It’s a blend of 10-year-old bourbon and 16-year-old bourbon selected by master distiller Eddie Russell and his son, associate blender Bruce Russell. There are notes of caramel, vanilla, yellow cake, maple, raisins, fig, and a touch of spice on the palate, along with a faint dose of banana that you might expect more from a Jack Daniel’s whiskey, along with a touch of that old-school Wild Turkey musty funk. This bourbon is a stunner, a whiskey par excellence, and while nothing is perfect I really have trouble finding any fault with it.
