The Denver International Spirits Competition is now in its 15th year, and has established itself as one of the most rigorous whiskey competitions in the United States.
Every entry is judged double-blind on a 100-point scale, with entries grouped by category and price point. The regular judging rounds are followed by a separate Best of Show tasting in which the senior judge selects the top three whiskies of the year. This is also the first year that a Platinum medal has been introduced, with an expression needing at least 98 points to qualify.
This year’s whiskey winners came from four very different corners of American whiskey. Below, we look at each one, how it was made, and what makes it worth your attention.
Stranahan’s 2025 Diamond Peak Local Brewer’s Cask Single Malt Whiskey
Award: Best of Show – 1st Place (tie)
Score: 96
Tasting Notes: Raisin, fig, chocolate-covered candied oranges, espresso, old cedar, chocolate malt, berry mix, semi-sweet chocolate chips, orange slices, and hazelnut, dry with medium length, thick texture that coats the mouth, lingering.
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Find Your Next Bottle: $79.99
Stranahan’s was founded in 2004 when George Stranahan, owner of Flying Dog Brewery, met volunteer firefighter Jess Graber while Graber was helping extinguish a fire on Stranahan’s barn. Their earliest whiskey batches were distilled from Flying Dog’s beer mash, which gives the Local Brewer’s Cask a neat sense of symmetry two decades on.
The whiskey is a 100% malted barley American single malt, aged in new American oak at 5,280 feet in Denver before spending 18 months finishing in Stranahan’s own barrels that have been loaned to Colorado craft breweries.
Those breweries fill the barrels with imperial stout, coffee stout, barleywine, Belgian quad, and peach ale before returning them to the distillery. Stranahan’s calls the program Boomerang Barrels.
Diamond Peak is an annual limited series launched in 2022, with each batch built around a different finishing approach. Batch 4 debuted in September 2025.
The blend was overseen by Justin Aden, who joined as the distillery’s first-ever Head Blender in October 2023. Stranahan’s has been owned by Proximo Spirits since 2010.
Uncle Nearest Master Blend Edition – BLEND NO: 072 Whiskey
Award: Best of Show – 1st Place (tie)
Score: 96
Tasting Notes: Caramelized sugar, dark fruit, and warm baking spice
Find Your Next Bottle: $164
Nathan “Nearest” Green was the man who taught Jack Daniel how to distill in Lynchburg, Tennessee, and is widely recognized as the first known African American master distiller in U.S. history. For much of the 20th century, his name was largely absent from the story.
That changed in 2016 when journalist Clay Risen wrote about Green’s role in the New York Times, prompting entrepreneur Fawn Weaver to found Uncle Nearest Inc. By 2024, the brand had reached a valuation of $1.1 billion, making it the fastest-growing American whiskey brand in U.S. history.
The Master Blend Edition is the brand’s most exclusive expression. Master Blender Victoria Eady Butler, Green’s great-great-granddaughter, reserves what she considers the standout barrel from every batch of 1884 Small Batch she oversees.
The Master Blend Edition is an assembly of those reserved barrels, bottled at cask strength and unfiltered, with each blend numbered sequentially. Blend No. 072 is the 72nd such release.
Until 2025, the Master Blend Edition was only available at Nearest Green Distillery in Shelbyville, Tennessee. This release marked its first national rollout: 8,888 bottles across 32 U.S. markets at $149 retail, timed to the brand’s eighth anniversary.
Butler has been named Master Blender of the Year four times and was the first woman and first African American to hold the title.
Augusta Distillery Buckner’s 13 Year Kentucky Straight Bourbon
Award: Best of Show – 2nd Place
Score: 95
Tasting Notes: Antique wood, wet soil, dry corn, honey, vanilla, spice, caramel, buttery cream, tea leaves
Find Your Next Bottle: $229.99
Augusta, Kentucky is a small Ohio River town about 50 miles upriver from Cincinnati. It was founded in 1786 by Captain Philip Buckner, a Revolutionary War veteran who donated the land from a 7,000-acre grant, and it’s his name the distillery chose for its flagship expression.
Augusta Distillery was founded in 2018 by five partners. They converted the 1883 F.A. Neider building, a 40,000-square-foot former carriage factory on Seminary Avenue, into a production distillery and visitor experience at a cost of around $23 million.
Buckner’s 13 is a single-barrel, cask-strength, non-chill-filtered Kentucky straight bourbon sourced from an undisclosed Bardstown distillery. Recent releases have come in at 135 proof and above, with some individual barrel picks reaching HAZMAT territory above 140 proof.
This heat clearly works in the whiskey’s favor, with the expressions gaining a dedicated following.
Augusta appointed its first Master Distiller, Alexandra Castle, in May 2024 and began filling its own barrels the following month. Because the distillery commits to a minimum eight-year age statement, the first Augusta-distilled bottles are not expected until around 2032.
1792 Full Proof Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Award: Platinum
Score: 98
Tasting Notes: Deep smoke, sweet vanilla, caramel
Find Your Next Bottle: $39
Barton 1792 Distillery is located in Bardstown, Kentucky, and traces its roots to a distillery established in 1879. It is one of the oldest continuously operating distilleries in the state, with over 29 aging warehouses on site and a natural limestone spring that has supplied process water for over a century.
Sazerac acquired the distillery in 2009 and rebranded it Barton 1792, adding it to a Kentucky portfolio that includes Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare, Weller, and Blanton’s.
The 1792 range is named for June 1, 1792, the date Kentucky became the 15th U.S. state.
Full Proof takes its name from the concept of barrel entry proof: it is bottled at 125 proof, the same strength at which the whiskey entered the barrel, rather than being proofed down before bottling. It is non-chill-filtered, with a mash bill widely reported to be high-rye at approximately 75% corn, 15% rye, and 10% malted barley, though Barton does not officially publish its recipe.
Final Thoughts
This year’s DISC whiskey podium covers a lot of ground. A Colorado single malt with deep roots in the local craft beer scene, a Tennessee whiskey built around one of the most compelling origin stories in American spirits, a sourced single-barrel bourbon from a distillery still in its infancy, and a Bardstown veteran that has been collecting major awards for the better part of a decade.
It is also worth noting how the scoring worked out. The two Best of Show 1st Place winners and the Best of Show 2nd Place winner scored 96 and 95 points respectively, while the Platinum winner claimed 98 points.
Do you agree with the DISC judges this year? Or is there a whiskey you would like to have seen take a top spot? Let us know in the comments below.
