The ADI International Spirits Competition is one of the most respected craft spirits judging programs in the United States, run by the American Distilling Institute, and the 2026 results were announced today (May 20).
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READ THE STORYRye produced a particularly strong showing this year, with one expression from Heaven Hill taking the overall “America’s Greatest Whiskey 2026” honor.
The top-performing ryes span heritage Kentucky producers, a Vermont luxury innovator, a California craft player, and a family-run distillery in Kansas. It reflects how broad American rye has become during its ongoing resurgence, with bottles ranging from affordable cocktail workhorses to limited annual releases that retail well into the hundreds.
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Below, we take a look at the best ryes from the ADI International Spirits Competition 2026, with a focus on how they were made, who is behind them, and the context behind each release.
Elijah Craig Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey Barrel Proof A925
Awards: America’s Greatest Whiskey 2026 – Best of Class, Best of Category, Double Gold Medal
Tasting Notes: Baking spices, molasses, cinnamon, stewed fruit, nutmeg, butterscotch
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Find Your Next Bottle: $74.99
The biggest winner in the entire competition, Elijah Craig Rye Barrel Proof A925, took the ‘America’s Greatest Whiskey 2026’ title, as well as Best of Class, Best of Category, and a Double Gold Medal.
This rye whiskey is part of Elijah Craig’s ongoing Barrel Proof range, which sees limited releases each year. A925 was the inaugural batch, presumably distilled from Heaven Hill’s rye mash bill of 51% rye, 35% corn, and 14% malted barley. It was aged for 12 years and 3 months in new, charred American oak and bottled at 108 proof.
Heaven Hill itself was founded in 1935 by the Shapira family and remains the largest independent, family-owned American whiskey producer.
WhistlePig The Boss Hog XII Feather & Flame Straight Rye Whiskey
Awards: Best of Class, Best of Category, Double Gold Medal
Tasting Notes: Caramel, dark chocolate, orange zest, citrus, soft oak, cocoa, earthy spice, chilli pepper
Find Your Next Bottle: $500
WhistlePig is a brand known for its tongue-in-cheek, playful, and irreverent nature towards whiskey. Standing at the forefront of the “rye revolution”, WhistlePig uses everything at its disposal to make weird and wacky, yet delicious whiskey. The Boss Hog XII Feather & Flame is no exception to that rule.
The defining feature of Feather & Flame is its cask program. WhistlePig describes the release as the first whiskey in the world finished in pulque curado de cacao barrels, with the casks seasoned in a custom blend of fermented agave sap, cacao, and a trio of Mexican chiltepín, guajillo, and pasilla peppers.
Chief blender Meghan Ireland and the team conducted research trips to central Mexico to develop the finishing recipe, and found that pulque and xocolatl (a chocolate Aztec drink) were central to the flavors of the country.
The underlying rye is sourced, bottled at natural barrel strength between 104.8 and 108.4 proof, and carries no formal age statement.
It is the 12th annual release in WhistlePig’s Boss Hog series, each bottle drawn from a single barrel, hand-numbered, and topped with a piggy pewter stopper.
WhistlePig was founded in 2007 on a 500-acre former dairy farm in Shoreham, Vermont, and has built a reputation as one of the most awarded rye producers in the world.
Rittenhouse Straight Rye Whiskey Bottled-In-Bond
Awards: Shortlist for America’s Best Bottled in Bond Whiskey, Double Gold Medal
Tasting Notes: Dried fruits, toffee, sweet peppers, cocoa, citrus, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla
Find Your Next Bottle: $28
Rittenhouse is one of the bottles that helped carry American rye through its leanest years. First introduced in 1934 by Continental Distilling Corporation in Philadelphia and reintroduced as a 4-year-old Bottled-in-Bond in 1948, the brand was acquired by Heaven Hill in the 1980s and shifted to Kentucky production.
Through the rye doldrums of the 1990s and early 2000s, it was for stretches one of the only widely available Bottled-in-Bond ryes on the market, and it has since become a cornerstone of the modern cocktail revival.
The Bottled-in-Bond designation, governed by the 1897 act of the same name, requires the whiskey to be the product of one distillery, one distilling season, aged at least four years in a federally bonded warehouse, and bottled at exactly 100 proof.
Production happens at Heaven Hill’s Bernheim Distillery in Louisville, apparently using the same 51% rye, 35% corn, 14% malted barley mashbill as Elijah Craig Rye. The bottle remains a year-round core release with an SRP around $25, making it cheap, available, and reliable.
Heaven Hill Grain to Glass Traditional Barrel Series – Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey
Awards: Double Gold Medal
Tasting Notes:
Find Your Next Bottle: $161
As well as producing heritage brands like Elijah Craig and Rittenhouse, Heaven Hill Distillery is no stranger to experimentation. The eponymous Heaven Hill line is home to the Grain to Glass program, in which the distillery experiments with variables such grain varietals. Here, the distillery allows complete transparency, telling the consumer everything about what it is in the bottle.
The corn varietal chosen for the 2025 rye release is Beck’s Hybrids 6225, a non-GMO varietal grown by Peterson Farms in Nelson County, Kentucky, on land just across the road from Heaven Hill’s Bardstown campus.
This 2nd edition of the Grain to Glass Rye carries a mashbill of 63% rye, 24% corn, and 13% malted barley, a notably higher rye content than the producer’s standard recipe. It was distilled in 2018 and aged for more than six years in new charred American oak at Cox’s Creek in warehouses W5 and W6 on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th floors. Finally, the whiskey was bottled non-chill filtered at 105.2 proof.
Backing up the distillery’s commitment to sustainable farming and giving back, a portion of every Grain to Glass sale supports Farm Rescue, a nonprofit that assists U.S. farm families in crisis.
Redwood Empire Emerald Giant Rye Whiskey
Awards: Double Gold Medal
Tasting Notes: Brown sugar, cinnamon, pepper, honey, orange peel
Find Your Next Bottle: $30
Emerald Giant takes its name from a redwood in Redwood National Park that the brand describes as the fastest-growing redwood in the world.
Every Redwood Empire expression is named after a specific protected tree, and the brand plants a tree for every bottle sold through its partnership with Trees for the Future, a program that has now passed 1.8 million trees planted.
The whiskey is made in Northern California, distilled at Redwood Empire’s facility in Graton, Sonoma County, with production now expanding into the Savage & Cooke distillery on Mare Island following its acquisition in December 2024.
The current mashbill for Emerald Giant Rye is 92% rye, 5% malted barley, and 3% wheat, with the whiskey bottled at 90 proof and built from a blend of barrels aged 4 to 7 years.
Redwood Empire keeps Emerald Giant as a year-round core release with an SRP around $35 to $40.
Union Horse Distilling Co. Reunion Straight Rye Whiskey
Awards: Double Gold Medal
Tasting Notes: Butterscotch, caramel, cinnamon, ginger
Find Your Next Bottle: $38.99
Reunion Rye is the work of the four Garcia siblings, who founded the operation in Lenexa, Kansas in 2010. Patrick Garcia serves as master distiller, with Damian, Eric, and Mary running sales and marketing, the distillery floor, and special events, respectively.
The late Dave Pickerell, formerly of Maker’s Mark, consulted on the launch. The result is a true grain-to-glass operation that mills regional Midwest grain in-house and ages on-site in a non-climate-controlled rickhouse, where Kansas temperature swings drive wood and whiskey interaction.
Reunion is built from a 100% rye mashbill, with commercial enzymes used in place of malted barley, helping Patrick to better control the mash in terms of its viscosity. It is distilled on a 500-gallon copper hybrid still nicknamed Chester Copperpot, aged for 5 to 7 years in new charred Missouri white oak barrels, and bottled non-chill filtered at 93 proof.
A Strong Year For American Rye
The 2026 ADI rye medalists cover a wide span of American whiskey. Heaven Hill took three of the six medals across three very different price points, anchoring a strong year for the distillery.
The rest of the list runs from a Vermont producer finishing its rye in agave-and-cacao casks to a Kansas family operation hand-signing every bottle.
Have you tried any of these ryes? Let us know which ones stand out to you, or if there is a bottle you think deserved a place on the list.
