Sadly, you won’t see much in the way of representation from several of the most hyped distilleries in the world of American whiskey-unfortunately, we can only write about what we have a chance to sample, and it’s never been harder to find certain ultra-hyped limited releases. To be considered in this section, whiskeys had to be either newly released in 2020, or hit the U.S. So without further ado, let’s get into it.
Like last year, I’ve broken this down into three sections: best whiskeys, best additional spirits and bonus awards.
I dove deep on issues such as out-of-control bourbon price gouging, and wrote essays on macabre corners of alcohol history.Īnd along the way, I naturally drank some damn good spirits-having reached the end of 2020, it’s time to recognize them. I explored the boundaries of emerging styles of spirits, wrote a ridiculous number of whiskey features, lists and reviews, and generally expanded my expertise in the spirit world at an exponential rate. The pandemic in particular made for a setting in which it was more difficult than ever to visit the breweries, beer bars and cocktail hubs that are my typical hangouts, and I compensated by diving even further into spirits and cocktails. If my spirits focus was “likely” central in 2019, though, there was no doubt of that fact in 2020.
#BEST WHISKEY 2020 SERIES#
Mixology has become my favored alcohol language, which is exactly why I created a new Paste series called Cocktail Queries that has been running all through 2020, answering common questions related to cocktails and spirits. This was likely the result of both a disillusionment with modern craft beer styles and a slow and steady embrace of new styles of spirits for me, from malt whisky and aged rum to mezcal and amaro-and the infinite cocktail combinations that accompany them.
And even though we went with 50 for thematic reasons, we did not include a whiskey from each state (sorry, South Dakota).When I sat down to list and recognize some of the best spirits of 2019 last year, I acknowledged at the time that it was likely the first year of my adult life where I consumed more alcohol in the form of spirits than in the form of craft beer.
Then you’ve got our criteria for inclusion, which was admittedly pretty loose - many of these hail from a few select distilleries and the larger brands they supply, but others are tiny and regional.
#BEST WHISKEY 2020 HOW TO#
And one of the most popular whiskey brands we’re still not quite sure how to discuss. We didn’t have room for everything we like (see: those four brands we just mentioned) and I’m positive we outright forgot a few. Without spending too much time on a history lesson - though we suggest quickly familiarizing yourself with the Whiskey Rebellion, Nearest Green and the Bottled-in-Bond Act - we simply wanted to profile 50 American whiskeys we appreciate on this, our Independence Day weekend.Īs with any list, there are omissions (1792, Rittenhouse, Old Overholt and Willet immediately spring to mind). Whiskey is not an American invention, but the best domestic iterations certainly have their own fanciful backstories and flavor profiles (and we can claim bourbon and Tennessee whiskey as our own). (Updated 6/28/22 with new entries and bottles)
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