The World’s Best Whiskey—According To The 2025 New Orleans Spirits Competition

All the talk in the spirits world last week was reserved for Tales of the Cocktail, the industry’s largest annual conference. But since 2022, the gathering – which takes place every July – has also played host to a lesser known judging event: The New Orleans Spirit Competition. A late arrival to the increasingly dense booze-award-industrial-complex, NOSC is looking to make up for lost time by coming out of the gates with an impressive array of professional palates. It helps, no doubt, that many of them are already in town for Tales.

The competition also professes to stand out thanks to its unique evaluation format. The entries are judged, as described on its website, thusly:

“In two rounds with the top-six spirits in each class proceeding to a championship round, where the top awards are decided publicly. Industry professionals taste along with the judging panels each July at Tales of the Cocktail, pulling back the curtain on spirits competitions. When panels of four esteemed professionals blind taste the best spirits entered in the New Orleans Spirits Competition, an audience of 42 people are served the same flight.”

To be clear, the audience does not get an actual vote in the process. But they do enjoy a place in the room and are afforded an opportunity to be a part of the conversation. As such, it’s a slightly more democratized process than anything else you’ll see in the industry. And, as with any truly independent competition, each spirit is tasted in the blind.

Ultimately, hundreds of awards are doled out ranging from Best of Category down through Double Gold, Gold, Silver and Bronze. There’s also a separate evaluation for Packaging Excellence. But what we care most about is how it all distills down in the best of the best distinctions. For that there are 11 separate “Spirits of the Year.” There can be only one for all the major liquor categories plus RTD, No & Low Elixir, and Syrups & Mixers.

Today we’re taking a closer look at what those panelists deemed the best whiskey of the year for 2025: Balcones Lineage, an American Single Malt distilled and aged in Waco, Texas.

The unique 94-proof liquid marries whiskey making traditions typical to both the US and Scotland. To wit, it’s made from a combination of Scottish and Texas-grown barley, which is then matured in refill and new oak barrels. The best of both worlds; Old and New. In the pour, this hybridization results in a sweeter, fruitier nose – raspberry, banana and apricot steal top-notes from the underlying malt. There is a dryness to the initial sip; cedar and sarsaparilla, opening up to reveal cinnamon spice in the finish. A prolonged breadiness stays with the back of the tongue long after it has gone down.

All in all this is a fantastically approachable dram, particularly from this distillery – a craft darling which was purchased by Diageo in 2022. Balcones often brings to bottle higher-proof offerings that can be challenging to the whiskey novice. With Lineage, it has managed to walk that fine line, delivering something that satisfies newcomers and advanced sippers, alike. And it does so at the crowd-pleasing price of $40 a bottle.

To take home the top prize, Lineage bested some big names from far more prominent genres of whiskey, including the Bourbon and Scotch categories that helped informed its creation – categories with hundreds of years of history. American Single Malt, by comparison, was only formally recognized as a style at the beginning of 2025. Perhaps laudable recognition such as this can help lift its stature on the international stage.

Either way, it arrives at a pivotal time for American spirits as a whole. According to the most recent economic report from DISCUS, exports of such just reached a record high of $2.4 billion. And as of this weekend, the US and the European Union appear to be on the precipice of a new trade agreement which would keep those exports shipping out, tariff free.

“We are optimistic that in the days ahead this positive meeting and agreement will lead to a return to zero-for-zero tariffs for U.S. and EU spirits products,” says DISCUS president and CEO Chris Swonger. “This will benefit not only our nation’s distillers, but also the American workers and farmers who support them from grain to glass.”

It’ll also benefit European connoisseurs eager for their first sampling of American Single Malt. And for that, as the judges in New Orleans have made clear, Balcones Lineage is a sensible starting point.