Best Flavored Whiskey: 10 Bottles Worth Drinking

(Photo: Hardhide Whiskeys)

Flavored whiskey gets no respect — and that’s mostly for good reason. Serious whiskey drinkers treat it like a party trick, something to dismiss before getting back to their single malts and barrel-proof bourbons. Yet, if you dig deep in the rabble, some flavored are pretty dang solid, especially in the right context.

The 10 bottles below are ranked using The Daily Pour Critics’ Score, our proprietary metric that aggregates our house rating with scores from the most trusted critics across the internet. Ties are broken by price, ABV and overall narrative interest. What follows is the definitive ranking of the best flavored whiskeys in our review archive.

#10. Evan Williams Honey Bourbon

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Heaven Hill’s Evan Williams Honey Bourbon earns its 90/100 Critics’ Score by doing exactly what it promises and nothing more. At 32.5% ABV and priced well under $30, this is the category’s entry-level handshake, a honeyed, approachable pour that coats the palate with warm sweetness without veering into cough-syrup territory. It’s the bottle you keep in the freezer for guests who claim they don’t like whiskey, and it converts them every time. Don’t overthink it.

#9. Jim Beam Kentucky Fire

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Beam Suntory’s cinnamon-forward answer to the fireball phenomenon, Jim Beam Kentucky Fire scores a matching 90/100 and lands in the same sub-$30 price bracket as the Evan Williams above. At 35% ABV, it punches a little harder than its honey-flavored counterpart, delivering that familiar red-hot candy burn layered over Beam’s characteristically grainy, approachable bourbon base. It’s not trying to reinvent anything, and that’s fine. It’s a crowd-pleaser that actually has a whiskey backbone beneath the spice, which puts it ahead of most of its shelf neighbors.

#8. Knob Creek Smoked Maple Bourbon

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Also a 90/100, but at a higher price point and a meaningfully higher ABV, Knob Creek Smoked Maple Bourbon earns its spot above the two entries before it. Beam’s Knob Creek line has always played in the fuller-bodied, higher-proof end of the pool, and this NAS release at 45% ABV carries that DNA into flavored whiskey territory without embarrassing the brand. The smoked maple angle is the right call here: it keeps the sweetness grounded, adding a campfire undercurrent that gives the palate something to chew on. At $30 to $60, it’s the most expensive of the three 90-point entries, but the ABV and complexity gap justify the premium.

#7. Garrison Brothers Lady Bird (2025)

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A 90/100 at $100 to $200 is a tougher sell than the same score at $25, but Garrison Brothers Lady Bird (2025) makes a compelling case for itself. This 7-year Texas bourbon, bottled at a formidable 57% ABV, is technically a flavored whiskey, though calling it that feels reductive. The nose is a dense, leathery library of honey, almonds, tobacco, clove and cinnamon, the kind of thing you sit with for a while before you even think about taking a sip. On the palate, that honey-esque viscosity is almost chewable, with classic Garrison Brothers earthiness and tobacco threading through the sweetness like a dark ribbon. The finish pulls things back toward the tannic and dry, landing on clove, hazelnut and a faint tea-like astringency that keeps the whole thing from tipping into dessert territory. The Hye, Texas distillery has built a reputation for big, expressive whiskeys, and Lady Bird delivers on that promise.

Coming from the spirits critic writing this: Empirical rankings aside, this is much better than the seventh-best entry on this list if you’re coming to the category as a serious whiskey drinker.

#6. Magic Rabbit Chocolate and Peanut Butter Whiskey

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Cleveland Whiskey’s Magic Rabbit Chocolate and Peanut Butter Whiskey sounds like a novelty and scores like a legitimate bottle, earning a 91/100 at under $30. The chocolate-and-peanut-butter combination is the kind of flavor profile that could easily collapse into a candy-aisle disaster, but Magic Rabbit keeps it coherent, more like a slightly boozy Reese’s cup that actually tastes of whiskey than a flavored liqueur wearing a whiskey costume. Credit Cleveland Whiskey for knowing when to let the base spirit breathe.

#5. Howler Head Banana Bourbon

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Bottled at a respectable 40% ABV, Howler Head Banana Bourbon is exactly what it sounds like: a banana-flavored bourbon. It works quite nicely, delivering something closer to a ripe, sun-warmed banana Foster than the artificial banana runts candy that the skeptics feared. At under $30, it’s an easy buy, and it’s the kind of bottle that surprises people at parties. The higher ABV relative to its peers in this tier means the whiskey character isn’t completely swallowed by the flavoring, which is exactly the right balance.

Howler Head has significant partnership ties to UFC President Dana White, making it a rare celebrity flavored whiskey.

#4. Whiskeysmith Salted Caramel

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Under $30 and bottled 30% ABV, Whiskeysmith Salted Caramel is the bottle that makes you forget you care about proof. The salted caramel flavor profile is well-trodden at this point, but Whiskeysmith executes it with more precision than most. The salt cuts through what could otherwise be a one-note sweetness, giving the palate a push-pull that keeps each sip interesting. Think butterscotch pudding with a pinch of fleur de sel, not a caramel latte. It’s the most dessert-forward bottle on this list, and it owns that identity completely.

#3. Ole Smoky Tennessee Peanut Butter Whiskey

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Ole Smoky Tennessee Peanut Butter Whiskey costs around $20, which makes it one of the best value propositions on this entire list. Ole Smoky, the Gatlinburg, Tennessee distillery that helped put craft whiskey tourism on the map, brings its characteristically playful sensibility to a peanut butter expression that leans roasted and nutty rather than sweet and sticky. At 30% ABV it’s a lighter pour, but the peanut butter character is rich enough that it doesn’t feel watered down. This is the bottle you mix into a cocktail with chocolate bitters and a splash of cream and immediately feel like a genius.

#2. Wolves Rye Whiskey & Hop Flavored Whiskey

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The most unconventional bottle on this list, Wolves Rye Whiskey & Hop Flavored Whiskey is a collaboration between MGP and Bear Republic (the California craft brewery known for its Racer 5 IPA) that scores a 93/100 and costs $145. At 51.5% ABV, it’s the second-highest-proof entry on this list, and the hop flavoring does something genuinely unexpected to a rye whiskey base: It amplifies the grain’s natural spice and bitterness rather than masking it, pulling the whole thing toward a resinous, herbal character that feels more like a whiskey-beer hybrid than a flavored spirit. This is the bottle for the whiskey drinker who insists they hate flavored whiskey, because it doesn’t taste like any flavored whiskey they’ve ever had.

#1. Hardhide Chilton County Peach Whiskey

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A 97 is not a score this category sees often, and Hardhide Chilton County Peach Whiskey earns every point. Sidewalk Side Spirits, the Alabama distillery behind this bottle, leans into the regional identity hard: Chilton County is Alabama’s premier peach-growing region, and the peach character here tastes like the real thing, sun-ripe and slightly floral, not the synthetic peach candy that haunts lesser expressions. At 43% ABV and priced under $30, it’s the kind of bottle that makes you question everything you thought you knew about what flavored whiskey could be. The whiskey base holds its own beneath the fruit, giving the palate enough backbone to keep things grounded.