World's best bourbon blind taste test concludes worlds is best a 25 dollar bottle.

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A $25 bottle of Kentucky bourbon has won one of the year's top honors, surpassing whiskeys that cost 10 to 20 times more.

The International Wine and Spirits Competition (IWSC) has exclusively revealed to Food & Wine that Old Bardstown Bottled-in-Bond from Willett Distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky, will receive the 2026 Bourbon Trophy at the organization's annual awards ceremony in London later this fall.

The distinction follows Old Bardstown's 98 points and a Gold Outstanding medal in the competition's North American straight bourbon category earlier this year. Judges praised its "bright and grain-forward aromas; balanced dry palate where marmalade and brioche meld seamlessly with a delicate floral touch," along with a "lingering finish full of character and charm."

Perhaps most notable is its price: Old Bardstown costs a fraction of what some of its competitors command.

For American whiskey connoisseurs, Willett is a familiar name — as revered as Van Winkle, Weller, or Fitzgerald. Its sought-after Willett Family Estate releases are among the priciest American whiskeys on the market, making the comparatively accessible Old Bardstown an outlier in the distillery's portfolio.

The four-year-old whiskey is distilled from a mash bill dating back to 1936, made with 72% corn, 15% malted barley, and 13% rye.

Old Bardstown has a closer connection to Willett than some of the distillery's most coveted Family Estate releases. Many of those older whiskeys were sourced from other Kentucky distilleries during a period when Willett wasn't producing, from the late 1970s to 2012. Old Bardstown, by comparison, is distilled by Willett using its original 1936 mash bill: 72% corn, 15% malted barley, and 13% rye.

As a bottled-in-bond bourbon, Old Bardstown is bottled at 100 proof, aged in new oak for at least four years, and produced during a single distillation season. It bears an old-timey, tan-tinted label featuring a hand-painted thoroughbred, the same logo Willett has used since reviving the brand in 2016. The bottled-in-bond expression is distinguished by its gold screw cap.