The 12th annual North American Bourbon and Whiskey Competition announced its 2026 results in July, and the three whiskeys at the top have little in common. First place went to a six year old bourbon from a Kentucky distillery that opened in 2018.
Presented by Wine Country Network, the competition judged entries double-blind on a 100-point scale on July 11 and 12, with American, Canadian, Mexican, and South American whiskeys competing against bourbon. Anything scoring 95 or above earns Double Gold and moves into the Best of Show round, and a new Platinum award goes to entries scoring 97 or higher.
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Here is a closer look at all three.
Augusta Distillery Small Batch Bourbon 6 Years
Award: Best of Show 1st Place, Platinum, 97 points
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Tasting Notes: Vanilla bean, candied cherry, brown sugar, toasted oak, clove, nutmeg, corn sweetness
Find Your Next Bottle: $69.99 / £52
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Augusta is a small town on the Ohio River in Bracken County, Kentucky, roughly 50 miles upriver from Cincinnati. The distillery was founded there in 2018 in a restored 1883 building, and its first release, Buckner’s 13, was named World’s Best Bourbon at the 2023 San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
On-site distillation only began in 2024, on two 35-foot Vendome column stills, under master distiller Alex Castle, who arrived from Old Dominick in Memphis and worked at Wild Turkey before that.
The Small Batch launched in March 2026 as a year-round bottling across 30 states. It is bottled at barrel proof and non-chill filtered, with no more than eight barrels in each batch. Augusta describes it as “aged an average of seven years,” while the competition lists it at six years.
Its score of 97 points places it firmly at the top of the competition winners, with the new ‘Platinum’ award only recognizing spirits that score 97 or higher.
Blanton’s Straight From the Barrel
Award: Best of Show 2nd Place, 96 points
Tasting Notes: [your notes]
Find Your Next Bottle: $140 / £80
Straight From the Barrel is the uncut, unfiltered version of Blanton’s, bottled at whatever strength the barrel gives and with the proof printed on each label. Buffalo Trace says the proofs range from 125 to 135, though bottles outside that band do turn up.
It comes from Buffalo Trace’s Mash Bill #2, the higher rye of the distillery’s two bourbon recipes. The exact proportions are not published, but the rye content is believed to sit somewhere between 10 and 15%. All Blanton’s barrels come from Warehouse H, the metal-clad rickhouse that Colonel Albert Bacon Blanton favored.
The brand itself is Japanese-owned. Age International, now part of Takara Holdings, has held Blanton’s since the early 1990s, and Buffalo Trace produces it under that arrangement.
Elmer T. Lee created Blanton’s Original Single Barrel in 1984 as the first modern single barrel release, initially for the Japanese market. It remains difficult to find in its home market, and has become something of an aspirational dram.
Ampersand Aureus
Award: Best of Show 3rd Place, 95 points
Tasting Notes: Not yet announced
Find Your Next Bottle: $75 RRP
Aureus is a five year old whiskey finished in Naranjo wine casks, bottled at 60.9% ABV, and priced at $75. It is the fourth release from Ampersand, following Malus, Vinea, and Opimus, which came out in November 2025. These details were confirmed to us by Christopher Davies, CEO of the North American Bourbon and Whiskey Competition, as the whiskey had not yet appeared on Ampersand’s website or in retailer listings at the time of writing.
Ampersand is a spirits line from Foley Family Wines & Spirits, created by Chip Tate, who founded Balcones Distilling in Texas in 2008 and left in 2014. Foley brought him on in January 2024 as master distiller for innovation, and Ampersand bottles at the Minden Mill distillery in Nevada.
The Latin naming carries across the range, and Aureus translates as golden.
Three Different Routes to the Top
This year’s top three arrived by very different paths. Augusta is eight years old as a company and only a couple of years into distilling on its own stills, while Blanton’s has been in production since 1984 and belongs to a brand owner in Japan. Ampersand, the newest of the three, released its first bottlings in November 2025. Age and scale clearly did not decide the outcome here.
Have you tried any of these three? Is there one you have been meaning to track down, or one you think the judges got wrong? And what do you make of the results overall? Let us know in the comments.
