Everything on this list is reasonably priced and meets the standards of what I’d consider to be a “crowd pleaser.”

It’s a great time to be drinking bourbon, and a great time to be trying new bourbons. If you’re in the market for one, here’s what I’d recommend.

Elijah Craig Single Barrel 15 Year Old

What can I say about Elijah Craig’s sudden entry into the ultra-aged single-barrel bourbon world? Hopefully, I said most of it earlier this year when I reviewed it for Maxim. If, however, I left anything to the imagination, it’s only because this whiskey shocked me with its complexity and curb appeal.

It’s silky on the tongue, it’s complex, earthy, and loaded with baking spices. It’s dessert-forward, with buttercream, caramel, dark chocolate chip cookies, homemade fudge, and vanilla bean.

All of that makes it dangerous for the pantry, but gives it some great “treat” value as a special pour.

108 Proof / $150

Booker’s Batch 2026-01

Can the first batch of Booker’s Bourbon of 2026 be the best? Well, actually, yeah. I already wrote some thoughts about this bottle for Maxim earlier this year, but even after revisiting this bottle, it’s somewhat astounding how great it is.

Booker’s is an iconic bourbon often characterized by bold, silky vanillas, oily hints of peanut butter, and a higher proof point that never makes you feel like the first unfortunate victim to be splashed with alien blood in a Ridley Scott movie.

This bottle just offers more — dark cherry notes, hints of molasses and caramel, distant notes of black pepper and cacao. On the palate, it winks at notes of classic cola, but the telltale Beam “peanut butter” note is thoughtfully muted and restrained to the background, allowing for this batch to evolve.

Booker’s Batch 2026-1 is tight, bold, dry, sweet, and a very untypical bourbon reminiscent of older whiskeys like Booker’s 30th or the first batch of Bookers: The Reserves.

129.1 Proof / $100

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Jack Daniel’s 14

I’ve been skeptical of the ability of Jack Daniel’s to make Tennessee whiskey at older age statements, because Tennessee’s warmer climate creates extra hurdles that most distilleries will struggle to overcome at scale.

Jack Daniel’s Master Distiller Chris Fletcher proved this wrong with Jack Daniel’s 10, 12, and 14 — multiple times. That includes this year’s releases.

All three whiskeys are oak-forward, yet none of them feel over-oaked, least of all the 14-year, which seems to have mellowed in the two-year window separating it from the 12-year-old Tennessee whiskey.

Yes, this is a bold, wood-spiced, tannic whiskey, and if you were to taste this neat after a lifetime of sipping Maker’s Mark on the rocks, you might go full Looney Tunes reacting to the sensation of tasting it. But it’s 2026. A concerning number of children have never seen the Looney Tunes, Maker’s Mark isn’t the standard bearer for bourbon anymore, and this bottle comes out bold, bright, a bit flashy, and ready to prove itself.

117.6 Proof / $150

Barrell Bourbon Cigar Blend 2026

Cigar blends, as a category, rely on fortified wines and European spirits for their influence, and Barrell is no different. Hungarian oak casks mingle with casks that once held rum, madiera, and armagnac, refining a blend of bourbons aged 7 years to 18 years into one collectively beautiful whiskey.

The 2026 Barrell Cigar Blend Bourbon is round, juicy, and full of that jammy fruit. Its grain character and the initial oak vessels lend vanilla sweetness and citrus, but the exotic barrels add value on another level. I picked up stone fruit, fresh strawberries, heavy cream, angel food cake, hints of fudge, and homemade fruit leather with hints of dark chocolate.

Does this improve the experience of smoking a cigar? That depends on what you’re smoking. But whether you’ve got some great stogies or you’re simply a connoisseur with an adventurous palate, this is one of the best things Barrell has bottled in recent memory.

111.2 Proof / $85

Green River Wheated Full Proof Bourbon

West Kentucky distillery Green River took a little time to find its footing — a problem that had little to do with the quality of their whiskey, and much to do with a dense, competitive field of newcomers challenging established brands.

At least, that was the case a few years ago. In 2026, the competitors are struggling to keep up, and Green River keeps releasing excellent bottles like this high-proof wheated bourbon.

Green River Wheated Full Proof Bourbon is everything you’d want in a high-proof, wheated bourbon. It’s light, buttery, sweet, and rich. It calls to mind Sugar Smacks cereal, buttery toasted brioche, honey-soaked sweet rolls, and a nutty undertone that’s best described as living two doors down from a family-run bakery.

This bottle may be the best value on this list — a crushable, mixable, sippable, ice-friendly pour that’s firing ongoing warning shots at Weller, Maker’s Mark, and Larceny from out west.

109.3 Proof / $50

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Bardstown Cascadia

Discovery, Fusion, Random Access Memories — at least one of these is a Daft Punk album, but the ones that aren’t French House music are popular, delicious whiskeys from Bardstown Bourbon. But Bardstown’s most exciting bottles of late have been more experimental.

Cascadia is an unexpectedly perfect collab between a top Kentucky blender and one of the United States’ quirkiest species of oak. Garryana (best known as a staple wood type for Washington State’s Westland Single Malt) delivers richer sugars and more potent baking spices.

Bourbon aged in this wood type, however, turns out to be deliciously nutty, buttery, and spicy-smoky. The finish is dry and intensely nutty — an impressive influence, when you consider that these bourbons only spent 10 months finishing in Garryana casks.

Bardstown previously released a whiskey finished in casks made out of 300-year-old French oak originally intended to rebuild Notre Dame, so yes, they’ll try anything once. Maybe Bardstown Cascadia isn’t for everyone, but I’m crossing my fingers they try this one annually, indefinitely.

107.5 Proof / $100 (375 mL)

High West Cask Strength

If you ask whiskey nerds about High West, most will tell you that the distillery’s limited editions (Bourye, Midwinter Night’s Dram) are the things to drink. A decade ago, the younger High West whiskeys were a bit rough around the edges, but in the last year, that’s changed.

High West dropped a 100-proof, Bottled-in-Bond iteration in 2025 that felt ready for prime time, but this year’s unexpected debut of Cask Stength Bourbon really changes the conversation.

This bottle is a perfect example what the best High West whiskeys are all about — rich notes of rich molasses, exceptionally creamy notes of creamed corn, and ribbony, gooey layers of caramel sweetness. It’s a Dolby surround sound experience in a glass; the THX theme might as well have played as I took the first sips. Still, it’s not too overpowered — citrus and fresh grain notes peak out here and there.

If you’ve been waiting for High West to evolve to the next level of maturity, 2026 is the year you’re going to have to reckon with the fact that they’re ready to take things to 11.

117 Proof / $70

Lost Lantern Far-Flung Bourbon IV Cask Strength

Independent bottler Lost Lantern still isn’t on most people’s radar after the better part of a decade, but that’s kind of a “people” problem. Lost Lantern doesn’t produce enough whiskey to satisfy the masses anyway — most of their seasonal releases are limited to a couple of hundred bottles. Even blends like Far-Flung Four aren’t batched much larger, unfortunately for us.

The seven casks in this bourbon come from different distilleries in different states, specifically Baltimore Spirits Co.(MD), High Wire Distilling Co. (SC), Rich Grain Distilling (MS), SanTan Spirits (AZ), Still Austin Whiskey Co. (TX), Whiskey Acres Distilling Co. (IL), and Wollersheim Distillery (WI).

This cask-strength small batch is a work of art, though. Toasty pastry and cornbread tease grain flavors on the nose, but on the palate, it keeps evolving with cinnamon candy, wafer cookies, and a toasty, slightly nutty finish.

I eventually doused this one with a few drops of water, but I did so carefully; this is a well-balanced, bakery-forward whiskey that proves how many cool, innovative risks are still out there to take in the world of bourbon. If you miss this one, keep an eye out for Lost Lantern in general.

120.7 Proof / $100

Michter’s 10 Year Bourbon 2026 Batch

Michter’s 10-Year Single Barrel is a perennial stunner. I’ve previously called iterations of this product perfect, and they’ve done it again for 2026.

This is a refined, flawlessly balanced bourbon. It’s cakey, silky, and lush on the tongue. The alcohol is well integrated and doesn’t singe the palate, even as some baking spices bring the heat. Michter’s 10 juggles those baking spices alongside buttery notes of cornbread and overripe stone fruits.

It’s juicy, modestly proofed, and it’s the encyclopedia-accurate definition of a crowd pleaser, and in my modest opinion, it remains undefeated as the perfect gifting bourbon for the whiskey nerds out there.

94.4 Proof / $195

Wyoming National Parks No. 5

Wyoming Whiskey has a great portfolio — there’s arguably not a single whiskey bottled by the brand today that rates anything less than exceptional. Outryder, Small Batch, Single Barrel — all great. That’s to say nothing of the most limited editions.

Somewhere in between is National Parks No. 5 — a 5-year-old bourbon that is arguably the best encapsulation of everything great about Wyoming Whiskey. Antique aromas and flavors of oak vibrate through this dram like they’re banging a flavor gong next to your head. Notes of spongey, rich cornbread, yellow cake, and fresh grain flex the complexity of this whiskey, but the magic is that it never leans hot, overly spicy, or out of balance.

I always get the sense that I’m consuming honeysuckle dew in a woodworker’s shop, if the carpenter in question happens to love coffee cake and waffle cones.

Our national parks should be preserved at all costs, and people who think otherwise shouldn’t be allowed to hold political office. This whiskey series is kind of the same — if you can’t appreciate something this majestic, what are you even doing with your life?

96 Proof / $75

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Think I missed something? Let me know.

—GCW

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