These 6 American Whiskeys Were Just Crowned Best in the World

The elite group of 2025 World Whiskies Awards USA winners includes many usual brand suspects and a few under-the-radar surprises.

Six bottles of American Whiskey lined up in a row, each of which won an award at the 2025 World Whiskies Awards. They appear against a bright color gradient background in the pallette of whiskey

By Ben Bowers

Published February 24, 2025

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Updated February 25, 2025

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The 2025 World Whiskies Awards USA winners were unveiled at a Gala in Kentucky earlier in February. As the name implies, this round of the prestigious whiskey award remained focused on identifying the best whiskeys made in America across a wide range of specialized categories.

Some categories awarded, like Best Bourbon, Best Single Barrel Bourbon, Best Small Batch Bourbon, and Best Tennesse Whiskey, mirror the whiskey format labels most are used to seeing on liquor store shelves. Two other categories, including Best American Style Whiskey and Best Finished Whiskey, nod to some of American Whiskey making’s most significant trends.

While a few of the most prestigious brands in American Whiskey found their way to the winner’s circle, a couple of under-the-radar distillers and blenders also added immediate prestige to their brands overnight by making the cut.

Now that they’ve been selected as 2025 World Whiskies Awards USA winners, each bottle below will compete against other whiskeys made internationally for a chance at the title of World’s Best Whiskey later this year.

Here’s what you need to know about each winning bottle and some context on what makes these selections stand out from the pack.

Best American Style Whiskey

Jack Daniel’s Triple Mash Blended

Though it bears the Jack Daniel’s label, this isn’t one of the world-renowned brand’s typical Tennesse Whiskies.

Triple Mash was introduced in 2022 as one of two new permanent entries in the brand’s first premium line extensions in over 25 years—the Bonded Series.

It’s a 100-proof bottled-in-bond blend of 20% Jack Daniel’s American Malt, 60% Jack Daniel’s Tennesse Rye, and 20% whiskey made for Jack Daniel’s Tennesse whiskey, making it one of the brand’s most adventurous releases.

The picture of the bottle might look funny to you, too. That’s because it’s a 700 ml style bottle—which is common in the international market—versus the 750 ml bottle that’s typical in the U.S.

In terms of flavors, reviewers often note sweetness from red fruits and cola in the opening. The malt whiskey content then brings a drier balance to the finish via a layer of oak and spice not found in most Jack Daniel’s releases.

Jack Daniel’s Triple Mash Blended Straight Whiskey

$33 at Jack Daniels

Best Small Batch Bourbon

A bottle of Boulder Spirits Cask Strength Straight Bourbon Whiskey is held in hand up against a blurredbackground of a forest of trees with yellow leaves. — This unique bourbon stands out thanks to its heavy malted barley content and its distillation at altitude in traditional Scottish-style copper pot stills.

Boulder Spirits 2024 Cask Strength Bourbon

The lone American Whiskey on this list without connections to Kentucky or Tennessee traces its roots to both Colorado and Scotland.

Boulder Spirits was founded by a native Scotsman, Alastair Brown, who dreamed of making American-style whiskey with two unique quirks. One is the high-altitude conditions of Colorado, and the second is the use of Scottish-style copper pot stills to make the whiskey.

Another reason this bourbon is notable is the massive percentage (44%) of malted barley, a.k.a. malt (44%), used in the mash bill. It’s a very unusual, naturally sweet, and complex flavor to find emphasized in bourbon, even though it’s the main flavor focus in Scotch and Irish Whisky.

The second iteration of the brand’s cask-strength bourbon is slightly older at seven years and bottled at 64.2% ABV, which matches the power of the best overall bourbon selection in this list, Blanton’s Straight from the Barrel.

Slightly less than 2,000 bottles were made from 15 barrels in total, so don’t expect to see this sitting around in every liquor store you walk into.

Boulder Spirits 2024 Cask Strength Bourbon

$85 at Boulder Spirits

Best Finished Bourbon

Three different bottles of Wenzel Whisky shown sitting on a distilery floor in front of a whiskey barrel. One bottle label is maroon, another is dark green, and another is gold. All bottles are backlit with sunlight, casting shadows in front of them. — This is the most mysterious whiskey on this award list. Little is known about its mash bill, pricing, or availability as of publication. And yet, it somehow won a key award covering the hottest trend in whiskey making right now.

Wenzel Whiskey Straight Bourbon Whiskey Finished in Sherry Casks

As with the Old Fitzgerald bottle above, we’ve covered this curious selection for the best-finished bourbon in detail. That said, not a lot is known about it. Wenzel Whiskey is a tiny craft member of the Kentucky Distillers Association that only recently acquired the means to start making whiskey in-house.

The bourbon is bottled at 100 proof and aged for seven years. The label also states that the bourbon was aged for the first four years in traditional charred oak casks before spending an extra three years aging in Sherry casks.

As of this publication, the whiskey’s price, mashbill, release date, availability, and provenance are still unknown.

Wenzel Whiskey Straight Bourbon Whiskey Finished in Sherry Casks

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Best Tennesse Whiskey

Two bottles of Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey are shown against a black background. One is 12 year old expression that won a World Whiskies Award in 2025 — Jack Daniel’s 12 Year Old line of Tennessee Whiskey easily qualifies as one of the finest Tennessee Whiskeys ever made.

Jack Daniel’s Tennessee 12 Years Old Batch #2

Surprise surprise! The best Tennesse Whiskey of 2024 is made by Jack Daniels!

All cynicism aside, this $95 bottle is arguably one of the most premium expressions of Tennessee whiskey—separated from Bourbon by a charcoal filtering step known as the “Lincoln County Process”—ever made.

The 2024 edition, made from 80% corn, 12% malted barley, and 8% rye, was the second-ever bottling in Jack Daniels’ relatively new annual release.

It’s widely praised for offering a surprising and compelling level of refinement and complexity. At 107 proof, it also packs a noticeably spicier and oakier punch than the 80-proof Old No. 7 that almost every drinker has sipped on at least one occasion.

Jack Daniel’s Tennessee 12 Years Old Batch #2

$95 at Jack Daniel's

Best Single Barrel Bourbon

A bottle of Blanton's Straight from the Barrel Bourbon shown next to its original packaging box. Both the bottle and box are shown against a speckled gold background — This unique and potent bottling of Blanton’s was once only available internationally until recently and has always been coveted by collectors, given that it arguably offers the “purist” tasting of Blanton’s.

Blanton’s Straight From the Barrel 2024

Blanton’s Straight From the Barrel used to be one of the most coveted bottles to search for overseas in countries like Japan.

As the name implies, it’s a bourbon pulled from individual Blanton’s higher-proof Gold barrels bottled unfiltered and at a powerful cask strength, making it one of, if not the purist forms of Blanton’s Gold bourbon fans can buy. The 2024 edition was bottled at a whopping 64.2% ABV.

Then, in 2020, Buffalo Trace announced it was finally making bottles of the SFTB available in the U.S. on an annual but extremely limited basis. Better yet, the U.S. versions would ship in the typical 750ml bottles (international bottles are only 700ml.)

The bourbon is known for its strong flavors of dark chocolate, caramel and nuts, and a potent spicey finish that’s typical of super high proof bourbons.

While a bottle retails for $150, this release is one that all of Blanton’s many avid collectors covet. It’s almost impossible to find through traditional retail channels and typically sells for far more on secondary markets.

Blanton’s Straight From the Barrel

$150 at Buffalo Trace

Best Bourbon

A bottle of Old Fitzgerald Bottled-in-Bond Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey 2024 VVS sitting on a whiskey barrel in a barrel rick house. — We named this rare Old Fitzgerald release one of the 100 most important products of 2024. The bottle has also received plenty of recognition and praise from spirit-focused media outlets.

Old Fitzgerald Bottled-in-Bond Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey 2024 VVS Release

We’ve already written plenty about Old Fitzgerald’s premier bourbon release of 2024 and even selected it as one of the 100 Best Products of 2024 for our annual GP100 awards. So, if you want all the details about this excellent 100-proof, 13-year-old whiskey release, read those stories.

That said, we’re not surprised in the slightest that the World Whiskies Awards honored it as the best bourbon of 2024.

Most who have had the privilege to try it might agree with this assessment. The Whiskey Wash gave it a 10/10 and named it their Whiskey of the Year. Wine Enthusiast named it to its best 100 spirits of 2024 and awarded it a score of 98 points, tying for a high on the list. VinePair came to a similar conclusion, rating it 98 out of 100 and added it to their best of 2024 selections.