For the third year running, Matt and I like to pick our favorite whiskey that we tasted during the year, picking from our whiskeys of the month for the year. This year we had twelve excellent candidates. Any one of them would make a great pour of whiskey. We tasted all twelve in four rounds of blind tastings with four of the whiskeys in each tasting and picking our favorite from each tasting for the final tasting. We also picked one extra whiskey that was close to winning a tasting to make the final whiskey for the four whiskey final. The whiskeys we tasted were:

Maker’s Mark Cellar Aged Bourbon 2024

Old Grand Dad 16 Year Old Bourbon

Shenk’s Sour Mash Whiskey 2024

Kentucky Peerless Toasted Barrel Bourbon

Michter’s Toasted Barrel Bourbon 2024

Michter’s Ten 10 Year Old Rye

Lythgoe Four Grain Bourbon

Michter’s 10 Year Old Bourbon

Hard Truth Four Grain Bourbon

Widow Jane Decadence 2023

Leopold Brothers Three Chamber Pot Still Rye

Frey Ranch Single Barrel Rye

From these twelve whiskeys, we chose for the final four:

Lythgoe Four Grain Bourbon

Shenk’s Sour Mash whiskey 2024

Peerless Toasted Barrel Bourbon

Michter’s Toasted Barrel Bourbon

It was a tough decision. We went back and forth between three of the whiskeys and after some repeated tastings, we finally agreed upon one of the whiskeys. This was a first for us as in the past two years, we ended up picking a whiskey each as our “Whiskey of the Year”. This year, we both picked the Michter’s Toasted Barrel Bourbon as our favorite whiskey of the year 2024. This is an excellent whiskey with a rich caramel taste and deserves it place as Whiskey of the Year.

Photos Courtesy of Rosemary Miller