The Best Whisk(e)y Sips To Ring In 2017 With

New to the Glen Grant portfolio as of fall 2016 is their 18 year old single malt. Building on the brand's core profile of light, honeyed fruits and floral notes by using their highest quality of handpicked ex-bourbon casks, adding further years of maturation and forgoing the sherry influence. Glen Grant 18 is bottled at 43% ABV, and a wider release of the expression is expected in 2017.

Released in early 2016, this is one of the rarest products Benromach has released to date. It was produced under the watchful eyes of Donald MacDonald, former Distillery Manager. It was created before the Urquhart family (also owners of Gordon & Macphail) revived the distillery in 1998. It is bottled at 43% abv in a bespoke bottle and sold in an attractive wooden case.

Garryana marks the first release in Westland's Native Oak Series, with others to follow in 2017. Master Distiller Matt Hofmann has created these expressions to showcase Pacific Northwest terroir. The rare Quercus garryana (Garry oak) is native only to that part of the world, and new casks of it were used in the maturation process of part of the whiskey. It is bottled at cask strength (56.2% ABV) and is not chill-filtered. Limited to 2,500 bottles for this first edition.

A 3 Year Blended Malt for $300? Don't let the age statement fool you! Scotch regulations prohibit producers from sharing the ages of older whisky components in their blends and this release from the rouge, independent blender Compass Box pokes fun at that. The blend contains only 0.4% three year old malt whisky from Clynelish, near the village of Brora; the rest is 90.3% malt whisky from the same distillery of "unstated but considerably older age" and 9.3% peaty malt whisky from Talisker on the Isle of Skye. It's bottled without chill-filtering or added color at 49.2% ABV. A limited 3,282 bottles were made available in October 2016.

In June 2014, brothers Jack and Stephen Teeling opened Dublin's first distillery in over 125 years. To commemorate their opening and "The Revival" of whiskey distilling in Dublin, Teeling Whiskey Company released this limited edition, 15-year Irish single malt. Non-chill-filtered, this was distilled in 1999 and matured exclusively in casks that previously held Caribbean rum. It's the first release of the Teeling Vintage Collection that will include a future release of a 24-year and 33-year Irish single malt. Production was limited to 10,000 bottles. (Note: This is not currently available in the US.)

Laid down by the man Booker Noe himself in 2003, this is a rare rye whiskey from the Booker's label distilled at the Beam Distillery in Clermont, Kentucky. Booker Noe was the Master Distiller at Beam from 1960 to 1992, when he handed off the reigns to his son, Fred Noe. This rye was part of a small batch experiment of about one hundred casks that Booker stowed away in his favorite rack houses, D & E, both of which see sun-exposure throughout the day. These are some of the last casks filled by Booker before his death in 2004. "Big Time Batch" is uncut and unfiltered at an irascible 68.1% ABV and aged for precisely 13 years, 1 month and 12 days.

The 16 year old from Lock, Stock & Barrel builds on the tradition of their 13 year old. It's a 100% rye mashbill, double pot-distilled straight rye whiskey, made with what they term a "robust cut" of distillate, expecting the lengthy aging period to come. Maturation was entirely in new, charred American oak barrels. Cooper Spirits chose their finest aged rye casks for this release.

This new release of Hotaling's is a 16-year old whiskey, released in November 2016--20 years after Old Potrero's first rye whiskey release. This is a 100% pot-distilled single-malt rye whiskey, and a single-barrel release at that. It is bottled at 50% ABV after aging in once-used charred American oak for 16 years. Extremely limited, with 200 bottles nationwide.

Following the release of their 8-year expression and continuing the celebration for the distillery's 200th anniversary is the release of Lagavulin 25 Year, which is a tribute to all the distillery's craftsmen over the years. A limited 8,000 bottles of this expression are available beginning in June 2016, with only 1,200 allocated for the US. It has matured exclusively in ex-sherry casks and bottled at its natural cask strength.

The 2016 Limited Edition Small Batch bourbon from Four Roses incorporates three bourbons, each with a different one of their 10 mash bills: 12-year-old OESO, 12-year-old OBSV, and 16-year-old OESK. It's the first time in seven years that the OESO has made an appearance in this release. Bottled at barrel strength, 111.2 proof, there are 9,258 hand-numbered bottles in the release.