Love it or hate it, longtime whiskey writer and critic Jim Murray’s tastebuds have the power to make bottles disappear off shelves. Containing upwards of 1,500 individual bottle reviews, his annual Whisky Bible is a guide to the good, bad and ugly of the whiskey world. It also crowns what Murray believes are the best whiskeys of the year. And as he’s gone on record saying, he believes Kentucky is making the best whiskeys in the world. Here are Murray’s picks for the best bourbons of 2019 (find the full list of winners here).
1792 Full Proof
CourtesyWorld Whisky of the Year: This year, Murray crowned a $45 bottle of bourbon the absolute best whiskey of the year. Made at Barton Distillery and owned by the Sazerac Company, 1792 Full Proof, a no-age-statement whiskey from a lesser-known producer, is not a whiskey one would expect to win such an award. We expect it to fly off shelves in the coming weeks.
E.H. Tayor Jr. Single Barrel Bottled-in-Bond
Best No-Age-Statement (Single Barrel): Buffalo Trace’s E.H. Taylor line is made with its famed Mashbill #1 (the same as Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare, George T. Stagg, etc.) and always Bottled-in-Bond. Its Single Barrel expression is slightly more difficult to track down than the more available Small Batch, and typically runs about $55 to $75 in stores. Though it doesn’t bear an age statement, because it’s Bottled-in-Bond you can be sure it’s aged at least four years.
