The Global Whisky Challenge is run by Wine Country Network, Inc., which judged the 2026 entries blind in Denver this past June. Spirits are scored without the panel knowing the brand or the price, and the awards run up through Double Gold and Platinum, with a handful of standouts named Best of Show. It is a paid-entry competition, like most, so the medals reflect the judges’ opinions on the day rather than any final word on which bourbon is best.
The six bourbons that earned the top honors this year cover a wide stretch of the category. They range from a bottle you can find on most shelves to allocated releases that trade for well over $1,000, and from a Tennessee bourbon made by a barbecue brand to four expressions that come out of the same Kentucky distillery.
Here is a closer look at each of the six. You can also find a breakdown of the Best of Show and Platinum winners here, and a list of all winning whiskies here.
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READ THE STORYPeg Leg Porker Tennessee Straight Bourbon Whiskey Black Label
Award: Platinum
Score: 97
Tasting Notes: Dark chocolate plum, cigar box, charred oak, espresso, candied pecan, black cherry, dried orange peel
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Find Your Next Bottle: $154.99
The highest score of the entire competition went to a 12-year Tennessee bourbon from a barbecue brand. Black Label is the oldest expression in Peg Leg Porker’s core range, released once a year in small, batch-numbered runs that tend to sell quickly.
The whiskey is sourced, not distilled in-house, and most drinkers point to George Dickel as the origin, though the brand has never confirmed it. The bourbon spends at least 12 years in new charred oak and is bottled at around 92.7 proof.
Before it goes into the bottle, it is filtered through hickory charcoal that pitmaster Carey Bringle burns down in his own smoker, a barbecue version of the sugar-maple filtering Tennessee producers usually do before barreling. The filtering happens after aging, which is why the bottle is labeled bourbon and not Tennessee whiskey.
George T. Stagg 2025 Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Award: Best of Show 1st Place
Score: 96
Tasting Notes: Vanilla, dark tobacco, ripe cherry, earthy, oak
Find Your Next Bottle: $1,300
George T. Stagg is one of the five bottles in Buffalo Trace’s Antique Collection, the annual fall lineup of limited releases that bourbon drinkers track closely each year. The 2025 edition was distilled in the spring of 2010 and bottled at 15 years and four months old, uncut and unfiltered, at 142.8 proof. That is the highest strength the brand has reached, well into what enthusiasts call hazmat territory for bottles above 140 proof.
The recipe is Buffalo Trace’s low-rye Mash Bill #1, the same one used across several of the distillery’s bourbons. The name honors George T. Stagg, the 19th-century whiskey salesman who took over the Frankfort distillery that carried his name until it became Buffalo Trace in 1999.
The suggested price sits around $150, but bottles rarely sell anywhere near that, with most trading between $1,500 and $2,000 on the secondary market.
Stagg Bourbon
Award: Double Gold
Score: 96
Tasting Notes: Chocolate, brown sugar, cherry, clove, smoke
Find Your Next Bottle: $70
Stagg uses the same low-rye Mash Bill #1 as George T. Stagg and is bottled uncut and unfiltered at barrel proof, but it carries no age statement and usually holds whiskey around eight to nine years old. It went by Stagg Jr. from its 2013 debut until Buffalo Trace dropped the Jr. around 2021.
Two batches come out most years, each at its own proof, generally somewhere in the mid-120s to low-130s, with the batch number printed on the label. It gives drinkers a barrel-proof version of the Stagg recipe for around $70, and it turns up on shelves far more often than its older namesake, though it still moves quickly.
For anyone curious about what George T. Stagg offers without the four-figure price tag, this is the closest regular point of entry.
Eagle Rare 12 Year Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Award: Double Gold
Score: 95
Tasting Notes: Oak, almond, vanilla, toffee
Find Your Next Bottle: $75
Buffalo Trace added Eagle Rare 12 to its core range in June 2025, the first new permanent Eagle Rare expression in close to twenty years. It sits between the long-running 10-year flagship and the 17-year bottling that appears in the Antique Collection. The whiskey ages at least 12 years and is bottled at 95 proof, with a suggested price of $49.99.
Buffalo Trace tied the launch to the completion of its $1.2 billion distillery expansion, describing the project as having a pivotal role in the introduction of the 12 Year Old.
The recipe is the low-rye Mash Bill #1 shared across much of the distillery’s bourbon, and the brand itself dates to 1975, passing to Sazerac in 1989 and settling at Buffalo Trace after the 1992 acquisition. The price reads as a bargain, though heavy demand at launch pushed real-world bottles well above the suggested figure. However, this of course depends on how attached you are to the well-priced Eagle Rare 10, which you can find easily in the UK.
Eagle Rare 17 Year Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Award: Double Gold
Score: 95
Tasting Notes: Dark tobacco, leather, ripe cherry, pepper, caramel, vanilla
Find Your Next Bottle: $1,500
Eagle Rare 17 is the oldest of the regular Eagle Rare bottlings and a fixture in Buffalo Trace’s Antique Collection, released once each fall.
The 2025 edition was distilled in the spring of 2007 and bottled in the fall of 2025, putting it at 18 years and 4 months old upon bottling. It was aged in a number #4 charred white oak cask on floors 1, 2, and 3 in warehouses L, Q, K, and P.
Unlike the other cask-strength bottles in the Antique Collection, Eagle Rare 17 is bottled at a steady 101 proof, raised from 90 proof in 2018.
List prices run around $100 to $150, but bottles are tightly allocated and usually trade between roughly $1,500 and $2,000. This was my favorite of the BTAC 2025 upon tasting last year, but is, unfortunately for most, now out of reach on the secondary market.
WhistlePig PiggyBack 6 Year Old Bourbon
Award: Double Gold
Score: 95
Tasting Notes: Caramel corn, oak, maple, vanilla, herbal tea, honey
Find Your Next Bottle: $37
WhistlePig built its name on rye, so a bourbon from the Vermont brand winning such an award might surprise you.
PiggyBack 100 Proof Bourbon arrived in 2022 alongside the PiggyBack rye, both pitched as everyday bottles at a friendly price. The whiskey is a high-corn bourbon aged six years and bottled at 100 proof, drawn from distillate made in Vermont, Indiana, and Kentucky, with the Indiana portion widely understood to come from MGP. It matures for 6 years in barrels with a number three char.
WhistlePig was founded by Raj Bhakta and got its start under the late Dave Pickerell, with Meghan Ireland now leading the blending at the company’s farm in Shoreham, Vermont.
What to Make of the 2026 Bourbon Results
A blind medal reflects what the judges poured on the day, not a guarantee that the bottle on the shelf will taste identical, and with the allocated bottlings here, getting hold of the exact release can be the harder part. Still, the results give you six bourbons worth seeking out, from an everyday pour to bottles you might chase for years.
So, which one would you reach for? Have you tried any of these winners before? Let us know in the comments.
