The 10 Best Whiskeys of 2025 So Far
Liam Curtin
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 the first half of this year that received my highest ratings on a scale of 100. My top picks range from some expensive unicorns to some much more readily available bottles. Check it out and catch up on something you missed or find out about something new, and happy bottle hunting.
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Garavogue 20-Year-Old Single Malt Irish Whiskey
Image Credit: Hawk’s Rock This whiskey is the inaugural release from Hawk’s Rock Distillery, which Buffalo Trace parent company Sazerac acquired and renamed in 2022. Former Bushmills master blender Helen Mulholland oversaw this release, a 20-year-old Irish single malt that is a blend of whiskeys given a variety of cask finishes—some in rum barrels from Barbados, and some aged in Barbadian rum, Cognac, marsala, and virgin oak casks that were finished in Spanish Pedro Ximénez sherry casks for 15 months. The result is a complex and fruity sipper with a nice balance between hits of sweetness and spice, and notes of ripe pear, vanilla, rum raisin, brown sugar, fig, dried cherry, apricot, and toasted nuts on the palate.
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Bomberger’s PFG
Image Credit: J Sprecher This whiskey is an extension of Kentucky distillery Michter’s Legacy Series, which includes Bomberger’s Homestead and Shenk’s Declaration. PFG, which stands for “Precision Fine Grain,” is a straight bourbon that was finished in new toasted and charred French oak barrels made of wood that came from the Tronçais, Allier, Nevers, and Vosges forests in France. That has transformed the whiskey into something very different from other Michter’s expressions. It’s a spicy, woody, fruity dram that has notes of caramel, fermented grapes, leather, sweet tobacco, milk and dark chocolate, and a variety of different baking spices on the palate.
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Jack Daniel’s Distillery Series 14
Image Credit: Jack Daniel’s Jack Daniel’s didn’t make rye until 2011, but fans of this Tennessee distillery–and whiskey fans in general–are glad that they decided to add a new mashbill. This rye whiskey, which is part of the Distillery Series, was aged for four to six years and then put into a “high-toast, no-char maple barrel” for an additional three years. There is a sweetness from the maple wood barrel, but that is balanced by notes of spiced nuts, apple, pear, cherry, orange, oak, and cinnamon. And the higher than usual for Jack proof of 107 (compared to Old No. 7 at 80 proof) goes a long way towards augmenting the whiskey’s flavor.
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J. Rieger Bourbon
Image Credit: J. Rieger This small Kansas City, Missouri distillery released an inexpensive bourbon that can stand up to anything you’ll find coming out of the big Kentucky operations. It’s a high-rye straight bourbon produced in-house at the distillery that was aged for a minimum of four years in new charred oak barrels. There’s a sweetness to the palate that doesn’t go overboard, with notes of vanilla, flamed custard, maple, brown sugar, and milk and dark chocolate, along with some spice and fruit from the high rye content. This bourbon works well in cocktails, but is good enough to sip on its own.
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Remus Gatsby Reserve
Image Credit: Ross & Squibb Indiana’s MGP distillery might be scaling back its whiskey production this year, but it’s still releasing some fantastic bourbon and rye under its in-house labels. One that really stands out is the new edition of Remus Gatsby Reserve, an expensive 15-year-old bourbon that falls in the upper reaches of that sweet spot of maturation. It’s a combination of two high-rye mashbills, resulting in a palate that is rich and complex with notes of stone fruit, cherry, black pepper, vanilla, caramel, and a surprising hit of banana that pops up. If you want to splurge on a new bourbon, consider this one.
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The Last Drop 27 Year Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon from Buffalo Trace Distillery
Image Credit: Liam Curtin The latest release from Last Drop Distillers was a bourbon distilled at Buffalo Trace that was aged for a staggering 27 years. It was matured for at least part of that time in the distillery’s Warehouse P, a climate-controlled environment that helps to slow down the interaction between wood and whiskey. Still, nearly 30 years is a really, really long time for a Kentucky bourbon to spend inside a barrel, but somehow this whiskey turned out to be fantastic. There are aromas of brown sugar, honey, cherry, and oak, followed by caramel, cinnamon, grape jelly, and toasted coconut on the palate–with a hint of peat smoke on the finish (although no peat was involved).
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Sazerac 18
Image Credit: Buffalo Trace The Buffalo Trace Antique Collection is an annual series of bourbons and rye whiskeys that becomes an instant collector’s item upon its release. That’s because these are older and higher proof versions of other whiskeys produced at the distillery that are released in very limited numbers, including George T. Stagg and William Larue Weller. There’s also an 18-year-old version of Sazarac Rye, and this year it stood out as the star of the collection. It’s bottled at 90 proof, the same as the regular version of the rye, but it strikes a perfect balance between sweetness and spice, with notes of dark cherry, soft licorice, menthol, and a bit of smoke from all that time in a barrel.
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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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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 might 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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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 with overpowering notes of tannic oak. 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.
