20 Best Whiskey Brands That Won’t Break the Bank

A $300 bottle of bourbon, in this economy? Sure, when looking for the best whiskey brands, you could fall for the marketing hype and hyper-inflation of ultra-top shelf names. But most of us are looking to buy a high-quality brown spirit that won't break the bank, particularly when we want to try our hand at home mixology and take a break from a canned cocktail. So for our list of best affordable whiskeys, we capped the price per standard 750-mL bottle at $60 — a respectable amount to drop on a gift for the foodie in your life (perhaps with a top-tested cocktail shaker?)—with almost half of the winners coming in at under $40 and an even cheaper champ (around $24!) that surpassed competitors nearly triple the cost.

It’s worth mentioning that while we tried plenty of popular whiskey brands, many of the winners come from smaller producers (some we’d never heard of!) who don’t have huge marketing teams. The benefit: That translates to an incredible value passed on to the customer. Most of what the bottle costs goes toward the product inside — not offsetting advertising budgets.

Our top picks

Whether your favorite is bourbon, rye, Irish whiskey or Scotch, or whiskies that are Japanese or Canadian (note: Scotland, Canada and Japan spell “whisky” without the 'E'), we’ve got the best bottle for each category. Looking for the smoothest whiskeys on the market? We've got you covered. We tasted 90 whiskeys (not all at once) to clue you in on which ones are best neat versus in classic cocktails or over a perfectly made clear ice cube. You’ll also find a flavor profile of each winner, why we loved it and what made it shine above the rest during our tasting of flights. Ultimately, our goal was for you to score great booze without getting bamboozled. Cheers to that!