56 American Whiskies Below $100 That You Must Try

You don’t have to spend a fortune to find delicious American whiskey, and we tasted enough bottles to prove it.

It is possible, indeed. splurge-worthy bottle of American whiskey It’s a great way for holiday celebrations to begin. But you don’t have to drop a ton of money for the good stuff. The 64 selections below are all under $100 — most of them, in fact, are Well under — and more than worthy of space on your shelf or bar cart.

Bourbon

Baker’s Single Barrel Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

This gem was aged for seven years and seven months in barrels in December 2011. It is 107 proof and immediately appeals to the senses. Its aromas of toasty vanilla, fresh grated cinnamon, clove, and dulce de leche, as well as slow-roasted walnuts, are truly beautiful. On the palate, toast and sweet oak spice are highlighted by cracked peppercorn. They then lead to notes of coffee mocha and chocolate-coated fruit.

Basil Hayden Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey – Red Wine Cask Finish Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

With just a hint if herbs, the aromas of mashed peanuts, cherries, and candied red apples are complemented by flavors of warm honey, Cracker-Jacks, Marzipan, dried rose petals, kirsch and sweet craisins.

Bib & Tucker Small Batch Bourbon Whiskey

This whiskey has graham crackers and spiced Butterscotch. Whole cloves and a hint leather finish. It’s balanced and friendly, silky in texture, and shows unexpected suggestions of cherry on the long finish. This is a great deal at a fraction of the retail price.

Blue Note “Crossroads” Straight Bourbon Whiskey with Toasted French Oak Finish

This reminds me of toasted marshmallows softened over a campfire with honey, honey and a touch or flowers. It also has a subtle core consisting of corn cakes drizzled lightly with clover honey. It is sweet without being overpowering and doesn’t seem to be cloying.

Booker’s 2022-03 Kentucky Tea Batch Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

This bourbon has been aged for seven years and four months. It’s big (126.5 proof) but harmonious. This bourbon is a delightful food pairing option, with its excellent interplay of honey-coated almonds, hazelnuts, and toffee with orange pastries cream and pralines.

Broken Top Mountain Whiskey Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Cascade Spirits distilled and aged this dram in Indiana. It was then bottled in Sisters (Oregon) by Cascade Spirits. This is a light, sweet dram with hard-fruited flavors and hints pralines and roast chestnuts.

Brother’s Bond Hand-Selected Batch Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Made from wheat, barley, rye, corn, and rye, this upfront cereal grain character has a spine that contains salinity, tobacco leaf, and is used to create a skeleton for subtle, spice-dusted flavours of hard apples and roast almonds.

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Bulleit Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, Barrel Strength

This 120.2 proof high-rye whiskey was recently re-released. It is strong but balanced with vanilla flan, coconut cream and milk chocolate notes. The finish is sweetened with honey flecks, cafe mocha, and vanilla flan. It’s delicious. ManhattansIt works well with large ice cubes.

Castle & Key Small Batch Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

The first release — dated 2022 on the bottle — was worth the wait. The oak spice and tannin provides ample structure for the flavors of caramel, dried apricots and pineapples, white raisins and toasted coconut. It will be very exciting to follow the trajectory of Castle & Key in coming years.

Cooper’s Craft Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Sweetly spiced with toasty coconut, caramel, and chocolate, and silky with flavors of orange-blossom honey and Halloween candy corn, this is dangerously easy to drink both on its own and in a wide range of cocktails — it makes a particularly delicious Old Fashioned.

Four Roses Bourbon

Four Roses American whiskey offers the best value, with everything from the Small Batch to an annual Limited Edition Small Batch release. The original is still a popular choice for classic cocktails and casual sipping. It can be purchased for around $20. Its subtle spice adds corn nuts, caramel, dried orchard fruits, making it an excellent choice regardless of your budget. You should also check out the New Belgium Oakspire Bourbon Barrel Aged Ale. This brew is made with ex-Four Roses casks and makes it incredibly rich.

Great Jones Four Grain Straight Bourbon Whiskey

This is a New York-grown, distilled and aged spirit. The result is sweet and spicy with enough bergamot and toasty vanilla and carob to season dried stone and citrus fruits.

Hillrock Estate Distillery Solera Bourbon Whiskey Aged

This whiskey is sourced from the Hudson Valley, New York. After being aged in a soliera system, it’s finished in Oloroso casks (20-year-old). It’s a praline-perked bourbon with notes of fruit cake, biscotti, honey, and a floral lift peeking through it all.

Hirsch Horizon Straight Bourbon Whiskey

The bottle is soft and easygoing. There are waves of honey, maple and dried apples. Finally, there’s sweet vanilla with a candied peel.

I.W. Harper Cabernet Cask Reserve Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

This is ex-Cabernet Sauvignon California casks I am reminded of white and milk chocolate, honey-drizzled cornbread, and caramel-enrobed currants. The palate is reminiscent of sweet tobacco, charred vanilla and grilled white peaches.

James Ownby Reserve Tennessee Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Old Smoky bottles this with orange marmalade, Chinese five-spice powder, brown sugar caramel, baked apples, and a finish that flashes with carob nibs, roasted cacao nibs and coffee beans.

Jefferson’s Ocean Aged at sea Voyage 24 Very Small Batch Mix of Straight Bourbon Whiskeys

This release of the popular series spent its life prior to bottling in the heat of the Caribbean, where, Jefferson’s explains, “the humidity was tropical and the average temperature inside the containers was 93.82 F.” The result is a savory-sweet whiskey whose cooked honey and chocolate ganache flavors are joined by dried cherries, graham crackers, baseball-mitt leather (in a good way!) Deeply toasted vanilla.

Journeyman Distillery Featherbone Bourbon Whiskey

Distilled in Three Oaks, Michigan, this showcases distinct aromas of leather and cigar tobacco leaf, joined by hints of boiled peanuts and black licorice before a palate of assertive peppercorn savoriness that’s cut with cooked brown sugar and vanilla pod. A spine of minerality provides a counterpoint to the orange pith and crunchy apple notes.

Legent Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

This delicate, complex bourbon is great value. It unfurls with honey-coated nuts, graham crum crackers, caramelized vanilla pastry cream, and candied lemon peels. Sweet spices—clove and cinnamon prominent among them—linger through the finish.

Maker’s Mark Wood Finishing Series 2022 Limited Edition BRT-01 Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Every year, the limited wood finishing series releases from Maker’s Mark are highly anticipated. This year, they came out with two at the same time — the BRT-01 is made with 10 virgin toasted American oak staves and shows notes of French toast, deeply roasted coconut, fresh-grated cinnamon, and vanilla pod. The BRT-02, made with 10 virgin French oak staves, has a more chocolatey flavor. It includes clove-seamed molasses, hazelnut vodka, and black-cherry jam. These are all complemented by flamed orange oils. Both are excellent.

Old Elk Wheated Bourbon

Aged for five years, this has a bit more spice than what you might expect of a wheated bourbon, but it’s still quite accurate for the style. It’s upfront and very friendly with nougat, Nilla Wafers, Twix bars, and orange marmalade, making it a fantastic all-day dram.

Old Forester “1910 Old Fine Whiskey” Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

This delicious expression from the venerable Old Forester benefits from a finishing stint in a heavily charred barrel, into which the liquid enters at just 100 proof (it’s ultimately bottled at 93 proof). The Nougat and Fudge flavors are balanced by the addition of dried stone fruit, orchard fruit, and cafe mocha. It reminds you of sweetly-spiced Twix Bars in a best possible way.

Penelope Rosé Cask Finish Straight Bourbon Whiskey

After reposing for more than two years in charred new American oak, this was finished in Southern Rhône Grenache rosé casks, lending it fresh, bright notes of wild strawberries and strawberry fruit roll-ups (in a positive sense), lemon-blossom honey, and nectarines, alongside more concentrated flavors of golden raisins and white figs.

Redemption Wheated Straight Bourbon Whiskey

The palate is delicate and easy to sip, with honey-tinged nectarines and honey-tinged peaches giving off a pleasant aroma. It glides across the palate with almost deadly ease due to the honeyed sweetness of the winter wheat at 45%.

Rough Rider Straight Bourbon Whiskey Finish in Brandy Casks

This high-rye gem, non-chill filtered, distilled and aged on Long Island, is bold with classic rye spice. It’s anchored by a core made of caramelized stone fruits. It is delicious and mouth-filling. The mineral-rich spine and mountain-berry fruits and the cooked-down plums make the final ring.

Stellum Bourbon

This blend of bourbons is bottled at cask strength. It has rich flavors of chocolate, toffee-coated nuts, mashed pear fritters and candied orange peels. The finish is equally complex with sweet spice, peaches, marshmallows and coffee beans.

Tattersall Minnesota Wheated Whiskey Whiskey Bottled at Bond

This is sweet and nutty, with hints of orange creamsicles, caramelized marshmallows and sweet pears. You will find honeysuckle and lemon blossom lingering on the finish. Blueberries and mint tinges are also present.

The Splinter Group Straight Edge Bourbon

This is a very savory bourbon that was finished in Napa, California. The barrel finishing gave it its structure and wine tannins. The flavors of cherries, caramel, cacao nibs and a hint of dried flowers are present before that.

Village Garage Straight Bourbon Whiskey Village Bourbon Vermont

This whiskey is 60% corn-rye and 40% Vermont-grown rye. It’s a good argument to try bourbons made in other parts of the country. This one is a more savory expression — no surprise given its higher-rye mash bill — with leather, spice, and tobacco anchoring Seckel pears, yellow apples, and fennel seeds.

Yellow Rose Distilling Outlaw Bourbon Whiskey

This 100% corn, pot-distilled bourbon isn’t finished in secondary barrels, but its particular use of wood for the primary aging is notable: It reposed in small American oak that changed the ratio of liquid to wood, imparting a more assertive oak character to the finished liquid, which is dense and rich, with maple-pecan pralines, black and yellow raisin financiers, and vanilla-chocolate pudding, all ending on a subtly floral note—honeysuckle, primarily—that is structured with notable oak tannins.

Rye

Bluebird Distilling Straight Rye Whiskey

From one of southeastern Pennsylvania’s most exciting distilleries, this 100% rye shows the sweeter, more generous side of the spirit, with melted chocolate, dried apricots, and raisins serving as delicious counterpoints to rye’s classic spice.

Boondocks Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey Bottled At Bond

This spice-seamed, spice-seamed, rye comes from Master Distiller David Scheurich. It is rich in warm honey, brown sugar caramel, and spices such bergamot, clove and nutmeg. The finish is adorned with chocolate-enrobed orange skins and a hint if spearmint, adding a refreshing touch to this luscious dram. The Boondocks 8 year-old Port barrel-finished bourbon It is also delicious.

Catoctin Creek Roundstone Cask Proof Rye Whiskey

This sweet and generously spiced wine was produced in Virginia in pot stills. The black cherry, maple candies, and dried currant notes sparkle with candied violets. They are supported by bananas foster, French toast, and a grace note containing wintergreen.

Dad’s Hat Maple Syrup Casks are used to finish Pennsylvania Rye Whiskey

Local maple syrup producers first age their liquid in these casks, which then are filled with Dad’s Hat’s excellent rye. The result is full of honey-coated nuts — pecans, walnuts, almonds — as well as maple pralines and orange marmalade, all tingling with just the right amount of rye spice.

FEW Spirits Straight Rye Whiskey Bottled In Bond

Entirely produced in Evanston, Illinois (according to the back label, it’s “mashed, fermented, distilled, and bottled” there), this is a more subtle style of rye. Its cereal grains are the main focus and the spice of the finished product is evident. The long, balanced finish lasts almost a minute. Before that, the mineral-seamed flavors grilled Seckel pears and toasted nuts ride along the middle-palate.

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High West Whiskey Rendezvous Rye

This rye is unexpectedly sweet with flavors of nectarines and candied orange, lemon peel, and suggestions of white liquorice and cloves. Cardamom is added to the finish, providing a nice contrast to the persimmon flavors that linger throughout the finish.

Hudson Whiskey NY “Short Stack” New York Straight Rye Whiskey Finished in Maple Syrup Barrels

What’s in a name? You can find everything you need here: The whiskey almost vibrates with the aromas of maple-butter biscuits, and syrup-drenched pancakes. It is perfectly balanced in sweet and savory.

Kinsey Rye Whiskey is finished in Vermouth Barrels

This whiskey comes from Philadelphia’s New Liberty Distillery. It is smooth and creamy in texture and contains apricot pits and peach preserves. The spiced caramel is enhanced by a hint of licorice.

Lost Lantern x New York Distilling Co. Single Cask Straight Rye Whiskey Finish in an Apple Brandy Cask

Honey, cinnamon, cider, and other flavors are underpinned with sweet, woodsy spice. This is all made even more complex by the addition of red apples and pears that have been caramelized and rolled in peanuts. Also look for Lost Lantern’s bottling of Spirit Works California Straight Rye Whiskey Finished in a Sloe Gin Cask.

Mad River Distillers Rye Whiskey in Silver Oak Cellars Barrels

Barrels that were previously leveraged by one of Napa Valley’s (and Anderson Valley’s) most recognizable Cabernet Sauvignon producers, this excellent Vermont distillery has crafted a 100% rye whiskey with distinct cocoa powder and cinnamon flavors that are framed by the subtle sweetness of currants and resolve with hints of maple syrup.

Milam & Greene Straight Rye WhIskey finished in Port Wine Casks

Ambrosial aromas of dark-chocolate-covered cherries set the stage for generous, balanced flavors of chocolate-enrobed caramels, cinnamon-chocolate pot de creme, orange oils, golden raisins, and fresh figs.

New Riff 6-Year-Old Kentucky Straight Malted Rum Whiskey Bottled at Bond

Effusive and impeccably balanced notes of malt balls, milk chocolate, cafe mocha, and sweet spice are carried on a plush, almost honeyed frame that’s informed by clove- and allspice-baked pears and grilled peaches.

Re:Find Whiskey made from handcrafted Rye Whiskey

Paso Robles whiskey, California is sweeter, and more silky, than traditional rye. It’s aged entirely in small (as in, really small: just 10 to 15 gallons in size) American oak barrels, which lends it a cinnamon and cafe mocha character, but what sets it apart is the pre-fermented liquid itself, called wort, which was crafted by a local beer brewery from a mash of rye, wheat, and barley.

Rieger’s Straight Rye Whiskey Bottled In Bond

This 6-year-old whiskey, which was first distilled in Kansas City in 2015 and bottled in 2021 is a rare find. It’s an assertive and concentrated dram, with preserved citrus-flecked nougat, grapefruit oils, and peppercorn spice ringing through the long, balanced finish. The milk chocolate and chamomile flavors are great counterpoints.

Uncle Nearest Straight Rye Whiskey

This new 100-proof release of rye is an extraordinary and richly layered expression. It will appeal to both those who enjoy sweeter whiskeys as well, as those who want a stronger one. Candy corn, honey-coated almonds, pecan pralines, and vanilla-and-coconut pot de crème lightly dusted with cinnamon sing with each sip, complimented with peppercorn subtly sizzling in the background.

American Single Malt Whiskey

Broken Barrel Luciferous American Single Malt Whiskey

This Indiana spirit whiskey was made from 100% barley mashing that was aged in 20% French Oak (not too unusual there), and 80% ex-India.amaro Casks are highly unusual! It is a remarkable whiskey that has hints of cedar, saddle, leather, cedar, orange creamsicle and black licorice. liqueur.

Cedar Ridge “The QuintEssential Signature Blend” American Single Malt Whiskey

A whiskey that’s predominantly aged in ex-bourbon barrels and then finished in either wine, rum, Port, brandy, or sherry The casks are then blended together in a solera system. It is a smooth whiskey that has notes of maple-pecan cookies and dark cherries, as well notes of melted chocolate and cafe mocha. matchaUnexpectedly, it was.

Old Line American Single Malt Whiskey Double Oak Series Sherry Cask

This concentrated whiskey was aged for just under three-and-a half years in new white oak #4 char and then re-used for 10 months in oak that previously had Oloroso sherry. This whiskey is full of honey pizzelles and Halloween candy corn. It also contains a lot of Oloroso sherry.

St. George Spirits “Baller” Single Malt Whiskey

After maturing in French oak casks that once held red wine, American-oak barrels that used to be home to Bourbon, this unique spirit is finished in ex-umeshu casks. Plums and hoisin sauce aromas are sweet and savory. The palate is rich with cracked peppercorns and fermented plums.

Stranahan’s “Blue Peak” Single Malt Whiskey

The Colorado-based Stranahan’s has gained some serious traction in recent years, and it’s no wonder once you taste this solera-finished single malt. The aromas of cinnamon-baked pears and peanut brittle are complemented by hints white chocolate, toffee and spiced candied hazelnuts.

Tennessee Whiskey

George Dickel Tennessee Whisky Bottled at Bond 2022

This year’s release of the Bottled in Bond expression was distilled in the fall of 2008 and bottled in 2021, making it a 13-year-old whisky. This time has been a blessing, as it has made it a rich, languorous whisky that shines with singed spearmint, subtle spice, apricot-compote, orange marmalade, honeyed notes to the toasted nuts. This whiskey is worth a lot for just $50.

Mixed and Misc. Whiskey

Firestone & Robertson TX Blended whiskey

This delicious, easy-to-sip gem is a product of a respected Texas producer. It has honey and praline aromas that are joined with orange marmalade and hints of bananas foster.

High Bank Distillery Co. Whiskey war barrel proof

This rye-forward, high-octane whiskey is a robust 116 proof. It has joyful flavors of cherries, pomegranate and toffee molasses that lend lift to the darker tones of caramel, toffee and toffee. The finish is reminiscent ginger snaps or espresso with orange peel oils added on top.

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Humboldt Malt Whiskey

Oak-driven sweet spice runs through each sip of this USDA Organic, non-GMO dram that’s crafted from malted barley. It shines in an American-esque twist on a Rob Roy cocktail.

Manatawny Still Works Choose Four Grain American Whiskey, Finished in Cherry Brandy or Vermouth Barrels

Manatawny is a pottstown-based distillery. It has become one of the most popular in the vibrant Philly region. In the past, I’ve enjoyed their tequila barrel-aged “El Murciélago” Whiskey and the “Scorpiones,” a whiskey aged in Mezcal barrels — both are unexpected and ultimately very appealing. This one is also delicious, and a little less idiosyncratic: Sweet and unabashedly kissed with cherry and chocolate notes, this is a whiskey that will perfectly accompany chocolate-based desserts, but it’s just as successful alongside a cheese plate with a scattering of dried fruits.

Tamworth Distilling Dunce Series001

From Tamworth, New Hampshire, this is the first whiskey to be crafted to go along with a book, in this case “Brand Mysticism,” by Steven Grasse and Aaron Goldfarb. Grasse has created a wide range of successful spirits, most notably Hendrick’s Gin. Dunce Whiskey, despite its name, is anything but: It’s a creamy, generous sipper with distinct flavors and aromas of orange creamsicle, crushed-peanut-coated apples, and candy corn.