Editor’s Note: On September 20th, 2020, whisky journalist and founder of OurWhisky.com Becky Paskin publicly highlighted over 34 overt gendered sexual references included in Jim Murray’s newly released Whisky Bible 2021. Murray’s tasting notes objectifying women as sexual objects are disturbing and contradict our company values. As a result, we have updated our coverage on Mr. Murray with this message to ensure readers are fully aware of Mr. Murray’s views.
Jim Murray, the world’s most-read whiskey critic, named 1792 Full Proof Bourbon Whiskey the Whiskey of the Year.
Murray’s annual Whisky Bible (available on Amazon), a tome of more than 1,500 whiskey reviews, is always a lightning rod for whiskey conversations. But this year’s top pick will generate even more arguments than usual.
Where more recent Bibles have crowned already impossible-to-find bottles like the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection’s William Larue Weller or E.H. Taylor Four Grain, this year’s is different. Barton Distillery’s 1792 Full Proof, while allocated, is not unobtanium. It’s barrel proof (124), non-chill-filtered and is available on shelves around $50 in most markets. That will change.
When the similarly priced and readily availably Henry McKenna Single Barrel won the San Francisco World Spirits Competition title “Best in Show, Whiskey,” whiskey drinkers saw bottles evaporate from shelves and prices explode. And Murray has a track record of his own. After Murray named a $30 bottle of Crown Royal the best whiskey of 2017, the whiskey sold out everywhere.
