Bourbon has never been more popular than it is right now. This definitive guide of the best bourbons of 2021 explores everything you need to know about America’s favorite brown spirit, including important terminology and, of course, a list of the best bottles you can buy at your local liquor store.
Best Budget Bourbons
- Best Value Bourbon: Evan Williams Black Label
- Best Bourbon for Cocktails: Four Roses Yellow Label
- Best Kept Secret: Old Grand-Dad 114
- Best Budget Sipper: Larceny Bourbon
Best Everyday Bourbons
Best Bucket List Bourbons
The Short List
Best Overall Bourbon: Knob Creek Small Batch 9-Year Bourbon
Knob Creek
In a whiskey market that’s become increasingly fragmented and allocated, Knob Creek’s classic small batch bourbon distinguishes itself. It’s our best overall bourbon not by way of life-altering tasting notes, but by stuff the stat sheet in a way no other bourbon can. It is available everywhere and thus resistant to the price gouging associated with brands like Buffalo Trace. Its 100 proof retains a fully body and mixing bonafides without lighting your mouth on fire. And this year the brand got its 9-year age guarantee back, too. If you’re looking for the best value in bourbon, just get this.
Proof: 100
Average Price: $35
Best Value Bourbon: Evan Williams Black Label
Evan Williams
“If Evan Williams were to sell this whiskey to someone else, that brand would mark it up to $40, and people would be happy buying it,” says expert whiskey reviewer Fred Minnick. But Evan Williams is a value brand. So its whiskey, at a great proof point of 86 and an age that Minnick says is roughly five-and-a-half years old, goes for less than $20. “It’s a fantastic bourbon, especially for the money,” he says.
Proof: 86
Average Price: ~$15
How Bourbon is Made
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Best Budget Bourbons
These bourbons are all under $25. They have some of the same flavors found in the world’s best, most sought-after whiskeys. They just don’t carry the same level of complexity; the flavors tend to come and go more quickly.
“A more expensive whiskey might have this rich note that lasts for ten to twelve seconds,” Minnick says, “whereas a cheaper bottle has that note just for one to two seconds.” Still, this price range has the best value of the entire market, and it also provides opportunities for bourbon to be used in cocktails — or as gifts.
Best Value Bourbon: Evan Williams Black Label
“If Evan Williams were to sell this whiskey to someone else, that brand would mark it up to $40, and people would be happy buying it,” Minnick says. But Evan Williams is a value brand. So its whiskey, at a great proof point of 86 and an age that Minnick says is roughly five-and-a-half years old, goes for less than $20. “It’s a fantastic bourbon, especially for the money,” he says. “You can get a lot of satisfaction out of that.”
Proof: 86
Average Price: $11 – $15
Best Bourbon for Cocktails: Four Roses Yellow Label
“This is such a dynamic whiskey,” Minnick says. “And it’s the best cocktail bourbon out there.” Four Roses is a highly regarded distillery, with a high-rye mash bill that produces an extra spiciness and a concentration on yeast that has been “eye-opening” for the bourbon world. They’ve also led the way in transparency. “They’ll tell you everything there is to know about their whiskey — they don’t hide the mash bill, the distillation proof. I presume you could ask ’em how much their CEO makes and they’d tell you,” Minnick says.
Proof: 80
Average Price: $12 – $20
Best Kept Secret: Old Grand-Dad 114
In 2017, Jim Beam’s Old Grand-Dad line of whiskeys was nearly axed. Now, thanks to rising whiskey prices and a consistently strong product, the brand — shortened to OGD by fans — has a cult following. Because it’s not a “hype” whiskey, doesn’t have a famous name and isn’t a limited release, it doesn’t get talked about — but I challenge you to find a bourbon with this much firepower at the price point. Its relatively low-corn mashbill (only 63 percent) is also unique, utilizing a staggering amount of rye and malted barley, creating a spicy bourbon ideal for drinking on the rocks or in a cocktail.
Proof: 114
Average Price: $25 – $35
Best Budget Sipper: Larceny Bourbon
“This has an incredible sweetness to it,” Minnick says. “It’s not complex, but the sweetness is really nice — the way it hits the palate. It’s a good, inexpensive, wheated everyday sipper.”
Proof: 92
Average Price: $20 – $25
Best Everyday Bourbons
According to Minnick, this is where the majority of the bourbon world lives. “You start with the six- to twelve-year-old bourbons that you can find regularly.” What changes from the entry-level spirits is complexity. The very best bourbons in this range “will have note after note after note after note, and then you can still taste that dominant note on your palate,” Minnick says.
Best Gateway Bourbon: Four Roses Small Batch
Four Roses’s upgrade over Yellow blends 180 barrels of four different recipes per bottling. “If you love cinnamon notes, you’ll love this,” Minnick says. It’s more complex than Yellow, but still drinks easy. “It’s what I want to sip at a ballgame.”
Proof: 90
Average Price: $30 – $35
Best Bourbon to Drink Neat: Four Roses Single Barrel
Made using a single recipe and barrel per bottle, it’s between 7 and 8 years old and has more complexity than the Small Batch. “For being the same brand as the Small Batch, they taste very different. This one is more of a sipper. I want to really sit there and think about it when I’m drinking it,” Minnick says.
Proof: 100
Average Price: $40 – $50
Best Bourbon to Pair with Food: Maker’s Mark
Minnick has a unique use for one of bourbon’s classic names. “I drink so much Makers with BBQ,” he says. Its mellow balance — helped by the prominent caramel notes of its wheated mash bill — doesn’t overpower meaty flavors.
Proof: 90
Average Price: $30 – $35
Best Rye Substitute: Knob Creek
Its “cornbread” note makes this Minnick’s stand-in for rye in Manhattans. That cornbread flavor profile is shared across many Jim Beam bourbons, but Knob Creek’s 100 proof is the perfect expression of the flavor, as opposed to Booker’s 126 and Jim Beam Black’s 86.
Proof: 100
Average Price: $30 – $40
The Smoothest Bourbon: Elijah Craig Small Batch
Though it shares DNA with other Heaven Hill bourbons like Evan Williams and Henry McKenna, Elijah Craig Small Batch is balanced, with extra maltiness. “It’s got so much caramel, and a beautiful nutmeg note,” Minnick says. “This is all about the sweetness.”
Proof: 94
Average Price: $25 – $40
Best Bottled-in-Bond Bourbon: Henry McKenna Single Barrel
The McKenna distillery was established in 1855, founded by the noted Irish immigrant distiller. Seagrams closed the business in the 1970s, and Heaven Hill purchased the brand name in 1994, but no longer uses the original recipe; as Minnick notes in his book, “The original yeast, mashbill, and flavor profile are gone, lost with time.” But one thing the new bottle does have is time: its 10 year age statement makes it one of the older bourbons at this price range. Take heed, though, since it somewhat controversially took home “Best in Show, Whiskey” at last year’s San Francisco World Spirits Competition it’s been harder to come by, and more expensive than it used to be.
Proof: 100
Average Price: $50 – $100 (price varies severely store-to-store)
Best Craft Bourbon: New Riff Kentucky Straight Bourbon
New Riff Distilling was founded in 2014. “Relative to Kentucky, they’ve been around for a few days. The rest of the nation is just kinda getting to know ’em,” Minnick says. The mash bill here, made entirely of non-GMO grains, is 65 percent corn, 30 percent rye and 5 percent malted barley.
Proof: 100
Average Price: $40
Best Cheap High Proof Bourbon: Old Ezra 7-Year
Luxco’s Old Ezra line could have fit in the “best kept secret” category, too. Bourbon with an age statement and available at barrel strength for a good price? That’s nuts in today’s whiskey world.
Proof: 117
Average Price: ~$50
Bucket List Bourbons
These run north of $60, all the way up to a month’s paycheck. Buying in this range is high risk, high reward. “Sometimes you’re gonna be disappointed,” Minnick says. “Just because a bourbon is 90 bucks doesn’t mean it’s good.” The benchmark bourbons at this range have upwards of 100 flavor notes to pick out, often happening at the same time and lingering on the tongue for ages. Or, as Minnick put it, the best should make you think, “If god gave birth to his bourbon child, this is what it would taste like.”
Best High-Proof Bourbon: Elijah Craig Barrel Proof
This bourbon just won Whisky Advocate’s whiskey of the year, and Minnick was on the tasting panel. “It was very, very nice bourbon,” he says, wistfully. It has none of the harshness you’d expect from a 133.2 proof bourbon, and doesn’t undergo chill filtering — instead just using light filtration to remove barrel char flakes.
Proof: 125+ proof
Average Price: $65
Most Nuanced Bourbon: Old Forester 1920 Prohibition Style
It’s bottled at 115 proof — “for this distillery, that’s the perfect proof,” Minnick says. “I’m going through a bottle a month. The notes kind of just linger. You can have five different notes hitting at once. I believe that to be the definition of nuance.”
Proof: 115
Average Price: $60 – $80
Best Blended Bourbon: Barrell Craft Spirits
You might notice there isn’t a price, tasting notes or distillery information listed on this pick. That’s because Barrell is, at this moment, the best blended of American whiskey there is (they have the trophy case to prove it). Each of its releases makes clear what went into it — distillery location, whiskey age, proof, etc. — and all are worth seeking out. Barrell is a blender, not a distiller, and the flavor mastery of founder Joe Beatrice and master distiller Tripp Stimson have won the old bourbon guard over. “It won my American Whiskey of the Year award [in 2018] in a blind tasting,” Minnick says. “It’s got so much flavor to it, so much complexity — it’s just brilliant whiskey.”
Best Wheated Bourbon: Buffalo Trace William Larue Weller
“Are we including bottles that are impossible to find?” Minnick asks. Sure. This treasure from Buffalo Trace’s Antique collection does its namesake a service, representing some of the world’s best wheated bourbon, a style Weller himself pioneered. “If God gave birth to a bourbon child, this is what it would taste like,” Minnick says. “It’s so fucking amazing.”
Proof: 120+
Average Price: $800+
Most Complex Bourbon: Four Roses Al Young Limited Edition
File it under another bourbon you’ll never find on liquor store shelves. The 50th-anniversary whiskey is made in part of 23-year old bourbon and has, according to Four Roses brand ambassador Al Young himself, flavor profiles of “cinnamon, peaches and cherries, plus aromas of gardenias and magnolia blossoms.” Minnick scored it a 96 for Whiskey Advocate. “It’s just so complex,” he says. “Last I tasted it, I was up to 100 notes that I picked up on it. They have something special there.”
Proof: 109.98
Average Price: $500+