Two whiskeys won top honors as America's Best Bourbons at the International Wine and Spirits Competition's (IWSC) 2026 American Whiskey Judging. Bardstown Bourbon Company's Lochs of Jura scored a near-perfect 99/100, while Willett Distillery's Old Bardstown Bottled in Bond 4 YO Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey was one point behind at 98/100. Below are the background and my tasting notes on the whiskeys the IWSC judged America's Best Bourbons.

Bardstown Bourbon Company, Lochs of Jura Barrel 10 Year Old, 52% ABV, 750 ml. Spirit Gold Outstanding, 99/100 Points

This whiskey is aged for 10 years in Kentucky and then receives an extended secondary finishing in ex-Isle of Jura single-malt Scotch casks. The mash bill is undisclosed but is likely a typical Kentucky straight bourbon base.

The Bardstown Bourbon Company began as a concept in 2013, under founders Peter Loftin and Steve Nally, a Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame member and former master distiller at Maker's Mark and Wyoming Whiskey.

The purpose-built Bardstown campus opened in 2016 with an initial $25 million investment. The site was designed from the ground up as a bourbon destination, with a working distillery, tourist-friendly rickhouses, a state-of-the-art restaurant, and a contract distilling business serving more than 30 brands.

In March 2022, private equity firm Pritzker Private Capital acquired the company. Three months later, Bardstown Bourbon Company acquired Green River Distillery in Owensboro, doubling its capacity. Annual production now exceeds 7 million proof gallons.

Most Kentucky producers run three or four mash bills. Bardstown, in contrast, has access to more than 50 different bourbon recipes through its contract distilling. The company has built three distinct release platforms on top of that scale: the Origin Series of estate-distilled 100-percent-house bourbons; the Discovery Series, a blending program drawing on rare, aged barrels from around the country; and the Collaborative Series, a global cask-finishing program.

This 99-point bottling belongs to that third lineage. It utilizes ex-bourbon hogsheads previously used to mature Jura's single malt, returned to Kentucky after their Scottish service for a second whisky life under Bardstown's master blender, Dan Callaway.

The Kentucky straight bourbon is distilled from one of Bardstown's house mash bills. It’s aged in new, charred American oak for at least 10 years, then transferred into Jura ex-Scotch casks for a secondary maturation of roughly 18 to 22 months.

Their Scottish service stripped out aggressive new-oak tannins and softened the cask wood, while leaving behind the coastal, slightly briny single-malt residue that Jura's house style imparts. The bourbon was then bottled at 104 proof, without chill filtration. The proof is high enough to carry the finishing influence without diluting the secondary flavors, and the unfiltered presentation preserves the heavier oils that would otherwise be stripped at the bottling line.

On the nose, the bourbon opens with classic Kentucky aromas of caramel, vanilla, and seasoned oak, then layers in a distinctly Hebridean overlay of dried apricot and ripe pear, salted caramel with a faintly maritime edge, honey on toasted brown bread, and a thread of cold coastal smoke. As it opens further, subtle heather florals emerge, followed by honey, dried orange peel, and a hint of ginger.

On the palate, it is rich, silky, and oily, coating the tongue with a viscous, almost waxy weight, more reminiscent of a well-aged Highland malt than of a typical Kentucky straight bourbon. The alcohol is well integrated and carries the texture forward without heat, showcasing flavors of baked apple, fig, and stewed apricot with a clear honey base, along with vanilla cream, toffee, cinnamon, and clove.

The mid-palate is where the Jura cask asserts itself, first with a clear malt whisky-inspired toasted bread/cooked cereal flavor, then with a soft salted-caramel edge and a hint of orchard fruit cooked down in butter. Additional notes of toasted oak and dark chocolate follow. The extended cask-finishing produces integration rather than an overlay, with the bourbon and the Jura residue complementing each other rather than competing for attention.

The finish is long, warm, and remarkably balanced, with lingering notes of caramel, dried fruit, cinnamon, dark chocolate, and a faint coastal smoke.

Willett Distillery, Old Bardstown Bottled in Bond 4 Year Old, 50% ABV, 750 ml. Spirit Gold Outstanding, 98/100 Points

Willett Distillery occupies a 130-acre hilltop on the southern edge of Bardstown, the highest point in Nelson County. Thompson Willett founded it in 1936, three years after the repeal of Prohibition, on land his family had farmed for the better part of a century.

The first barrel was rolled into Warehouse A on Saint Patrick's Day 1937. Old Bardstown was Thompson's flagship label from the beginning, named for the town and drawn from his grandfather John David Willett's nineteenth-century recipes. The distillery stopped distilling in the late 1970s during the long bourbon winter and entered a dormant phase that nearly killed it.

In 1984, Norwegian-born Even Kulsveen, Thompson's son-in-law, bought the property and renamed the company Kentucky Bourbon Distillers. A former merchant marine, chef, and decanter craftsman who had emigrated alone from Hamar, Norway, at age fourteen, he launched his business by sourcing aged barrels, blending small-batch releases, and pioneering bourbon exports to Asian markets at a time when most American producers had given up on whiskey altogether.

Distillation finally resumed at the property in January 2012, utilizing a new copper pot still installed after three years of renovations. Even Kulsveen was inducted into the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame in 2019 and passed away in September 2025. The Old Bardstown bonded expression dates back to the 2016 reintroduction and is fully house-distilled today under master distiller Drew Kulsveen, the fifth generation of the family in the building.

At 72 percent corn, 13 percent rye, and 15 percent malted barley, Old Bardstown is unusual for carrying more malted barley than rye, an inversion almost no other Kentucky producer attempts. Most Kentucky bourbon recipes hold malted barley at 8 percent or lower, just enough to provide the enzymes that convert corn starches into fermentable sugars.

Willett doubles that proportion. The extra malt drives a denser, more nutrient-rich fermentation and pushes the spirit toward a creamy, bread-forward, slightly biscuity note more reminiscent of a single malt rather than the peppery, dry snap of a rye-leaning bourbon.

The bourbon also benefits from Willett's copper pot still, copied from the 1936 plant blueprints. The still provides a slower, lower-throughput approach than the column stills that produce most American whiskey, and one that retains more of the heavier oils and grain congeners that give the spirit body.

Maturation runs through Warehouses A through F on the hilltop property, all of them exposed to the full annual sweep of central Kentucky weather.

The bourbon opens with aromas of caramel, vanilla, cinnamon, red-hot candy, and toasted almond. As it opens, a faint nuttiness, reminiscent of buttered pecan and brown butter, then digestive biscuit/cooked cereal, and a touch of orange peel emerge.

It has a medium-plus body and is lightly oily on the palate. The high malt content gives it a soft, almost custard-like coating that fills the mid-palate without weight. There is more density than the four-year age statement would predict, a function of both the copper-pot character and the high malt load.

Flavor-wise, it opens with toasted brioche, brown sugar, salted caramel, and a clear vanilla custard layer. The mid-palate brings baking spices of cinnamon and a touch of nutmeg over toasted almond, alongside dried cherry and milk chocolate. Light tobacco leaf and seasoned oak notes appear as the whiskey opens. Overall, there is more cinnamon than black pepper. The high proof gives just enough lift to showcase the spice without inflicting any alcohol burn.

The finish is medium-length and gently drying, with lingering notes of cocoa, salted almond, and a touch of cinnamon.

The IWSC 2026 American Whiskey Judging named two very different bourbons among America's Best, and the contrast is the point. Bardstown's Lochs of Jura is a mature Kentucky straight bourbon shaped by an 18-to-22-month Hebridean finish, where coastal malt residue softens the oak and rewrites the back palate. I

Willett's Old Bardstown Bottled in Bond moves in the opposite direction. There is no finish, no foreign cask, no blending program, just a four-year bonded bourbon distilled on a 1936-spec copper pot still, fermented from an unusually malt-heavy mash bill, and matured in unconditioned hilltop warehouses. It is American whiskey built from grain, copper, and Kentucky weather.

That two bourbons this distinct can finish 99 and 98 at the same competition is the most encouraging signal in the category’s scope and evolution. America’s Best Bourbon, in 2026, is no longer a single template. It is whatever the distiller or the blender can defend in the glass.