It’s hard to believe, but 2024 is almost over, and the quarter-century mark of the new millennium draws nigh. As the evenings grow longer and colder, I find myself by the fireplace, glass of whiskey in hand and a Rolling Stones record on the stereo, reflecting on the year’s ups and downs. I won’t sugarcoat it—2024 was a rough ride: the most polarizing political climate of my lifetime, the loss of a childhood buddy, and a woman who dragged my heart through the dirt. (Also, not in the same league, but a dearth of any new TV series worth watching.)
But as I contemplate the fragrant amber liquid swirling in my glass, I’m reminded that there were also bright spots—chief among them, the parade of gorgeous whiskeys that graced my palate in 2024. As a Southerner, I cherish bourbon just shy of God, family, and country, but this past year I broadened my horizons to include Japanese whiskies, ryes, and Scotches alongside my treasured corn-based elixirs.
Here are the best new whiskeys I savored in 2024, from old-school bourbons accented with Mizunara oak to newcomers from the Wild West and a few new releases from the Big Boys in Kentucky.
Photo by Hogsworth
Hogsworth Bourbon
This new bourbon from Raj Peter Bhakta, the founder of BHAKTA Spirits and a force of nature in the whiskey industry, blends top-tier bourbons from Minnesota and Tennessee with single vintage Armagnac, a delicate brandy from France. The blend contains three distinct Armagnac vintages—all exceptional years and the oldest among them from 1982.
Like a good ol’ boy from Tennessee wooing a French aristocrat’s daughter, bourbon and Armagnac make for an unlikely but beautiful marriage. The Armagnac lends a mouthfeel as silky as the hem of Marie Antoinette’s dinner dress. Its soft apple and floral notes round out the bourbon’s baking spice, vanilla, and honey flavors. Look for honeycomb, gingerbread, and gardenia flowers on the nose and zips of chai tea, citrus zest, and caramel apple on the palate.
Wyoming Whiskey - National Parks No. 5 Old Faithful
If you could capture in glass the essence of Wyoming—the grandeur of Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, crystalline rivers cutting through the prairie, boundless clear skies—you would have a bottle of Wyoming Whiskey. Unlike many new whiskey producers, Wyoming Whiskey does not source its juice from contract distillers like MGP. Each and every grain of corn, wheat, barley, and rye is proudly sourced from farms across the Cowboy State. Wyoming’s dramatic seasonal variation—hot summers followed by brutally cold winters—lends notes like stone fruit and honeysuckle to the whiskey, rather than deeper barrel flavors like baking spices typical of Kentucky or Tennessee.
Wyoming Whiskey pulls from the choicest honeypots, the very best barrels in the rickhouse, to blend National Parks No. 5 Old Faithful. The whiskey weighs in at a potent 54 percent ABV, but it doesn’t drink to proof: the taste is as smooth as a sip of cool spring water after a summer hike through the Sawtooth Mountains. My palate picks up notes of cocoa powder, almond sponge cake, and scorza d’arancia—Sicilian candied orange. Commendably, Wyoming Whiskey donates a large portion of proceeds toward preserving Wyoming’s majestic national parks.
Photo by Chicken Cock
Chicken Cock Mizunara Japanese Oak Finish Bourbon
Chicken Cock Whiskey dates back to 1856, and their bourbon, out of Paris, Kentucky, was a staple in speakeasies across America during Prohibition. I have long admired Chicken Cock’s Straight Bourbon Whiskey, a mid-priced gem as quintessentially Kentuckian as Colonel Sanders sipping mint juleps at a Derby party.
Their recent release, Mizunara Japanese Oak Finish Bourbon, is classic Kentucky but with a Japanese flourish—something like a bluegrass guitar picker from Bardstown studying Zen at a monastery in Kyoto. Mizunara, a gnarled, corkscrew-shaped tree from Japanese swamps, grows at a glacially slow pace and makes for some of the priciest barrels in the spirits industry. For many connoisseurs, though, the rare flavors imparted by Mizunara—sandalwood, incense, and jasmine flowers—justify the high prices.
Photo by Woodford Reserve
Woodford Reserve Master’s Collection: Madeira Cask Finish
Woodford Reserve holds a spot on my Mount Rushmore of Kentucky bourbons alongside Pappy Van Winkle, Henry Mckenna, and Blanton’s. Woodford’s Double Oaked, as luxurious and aromatic as molten caramel, is one of the most decadently delicious whiskeys I can name.
Each year, Woodford Reserve releases a limited supply of experimental whiskeys as part of their Master’s Collection. The 2024 release, bourbon aged in Madeira casks from Portugal, may well be the best entry in the Master’s Collection thus far. The Madeira casks enliven the bourbon with a riot of red fruit—dark cherries, cassis, and raspberries balanced by Woodford Reserve’s hallmark flavors of rich vanilla, baking spice, and walnuts.
Photo by Hudson Whiskey
Hudson Whiskey Calvados Cask Finish
With the likes of Widow Jane, Great Jones Distillery, and Hudson Whiskey hailing from New York, I’ll concede that those Yankees up north might know a thing or two about making whiskey. Hudson Whiskey, a distillery Upstate, ages this golden beauty in Calvados casks from Normandy. The hints of Calvados, an apple brandy, are as seductive as whiffs of fresh cider at an autumn farmer’s market in the Hudson Valley. Drink this rye neat or mix it into a hot toddy—the hot water makes the apple flavors dance in the glass.
Photo by Great Jones Distillery
Great Jones x Jean-Michel Basquiat Empire Edition
Unlike Jay-Z or the Japanese billionaire who purchased a Basquiat painting for $110 million, I will likely never own an original work by the celebrated Haitian-American artist. However, I’ll settle for owning a bottle of Great Jones x Jean-Michel Basquiat Empire Edition, whose label displays a reproduction of Basquiat’s Mecca. Chock-full of unusual flavors like white pepper, cornbread dough, and spiced vanilla, this whiskey is as enchantingly eccentric as the great painter himself. Like all whiskeys from Great Jones Distilling Co., the only distillery in Manhattan, all grains in this Basquiat tribute are from New York farms.
Photo by Little Book
Little Book—Edition 1: The Infinite
Freddy Noe, the mastermind behind Little Book Whiskey, is an eighth-generation distiller from the Beam family—Bluegrass State royalty through and through. Like a whiskey-drunk mad scientist, Noe likes to tinker with unorthodox blends, combining ryes, bourbon, and even Canadian whiskeys in his Little Book releases. In tribute to his forebears, Noe blends bourbon made by his father and grandfather into Little Book Edition 1: The Infinite. As you would expect from the hand of a legendary Kentucky distiller, this whiskey is a virtuosic symphony of baking spices, vanilla, and dried fruit coated in caramel sauce.
Photo by Westland Distillery
Westland Distillery—Beer Cask Finish
Westland Distillery, a trailblazer in American Single Malt, might just be Seattle’s finest export since Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. I’ve become fascinated by how different oak species can transform a whiskey’s character after savoring Mizunara-aged whiskies on a recent visit to Japan. Westland is the premier distillery tinkering with Garry Oak, a rare tree native to the Pacific Northwest, which adds distinctive notes of smoke and wet stone.
Paying homage to Washington State’s rich brewing and winemaking traditions, Westland’s 2024 releases feature a whiskey aged in beer casks and another in wine casks. Both bottles are collector-worthy, and it’s fun tasting them side by side to see how the different finishes change taste, flavor, and texture. Personally, I favor the Beer Cask Finish, a whiskey sparkling with unusual notes like peach jam, honeydew, and Asian pear.
