Review: The Last Drop's 2025 Collection Is Another History Maker

So many whiskey distillers and curators like to get their best product out in autumn so that we can all justify those big holiday gift purchases. While that has been the case with The Last Drop Distillers, the singular spirits sourcer doesn't sit on its greatness. The bottles in 2025's new drop have aged quite long enough, thank you. When they arrived in the States to meet my twitching fingers at the tail end of April, it was cause for both celebration and reverence. After all, these are once-in-a-lifetime drams, even if I've been willing to admit on earlier occasions that they're varying degrees of my thing or not.

And hey, that's what's great about whisky. Something doesn't have to be to your tastes to be admirable, and it might be someone else's. So where would The Last Drop's 2025 Collection fall in my spectrum? I opened up the case that had come to me with tasting samples and prepared to find out.

Some recommendations are based on firsthand impressions of promotional materials and products provided by the manufacturer.

Gathered by spirits experts who travel the world truffle-hunting the most exquisite of tasting notes, The Last Drop's collections showcase the truly amazing barrels quietly creating profiles around the globe that can't be matched. It won't surprise you to learn that this relatively young operation (having commenced its great work in 2008) fetches stellar prices for its cosmic quality across spirits categories.

Each year, its incomparable experts introduce their best finds, known for small batches, dramatic age statements, and unique characteristics. It's in character for Last Drop to introduce lost barrels and silent distillery relics, sometimes closed further back than their actual aging time. I'd say there's quite a backlog slouching toward Bethlehem, and 2025's hour has come around at last. This year's collection showcases three whiskies (or more precisely, two whiskies and a whiskey) that I'll probably be telling my children about by the bonfire in the Great Wastes. It's not a spoiler to say I enjoyed each of these drinks immensely.

None of these whiskies are widely available, and even seeing one is cause for a social media post. Therefore, you won't be surprised to hear that from the jump, these bottles sell for thousands of dollars even at the manufacturer's suggested retail price. Of course, that price means nothing for collector's items like these, when The Last Drop's 27-year Buffalo Trace, released in 2020, goes for about $20,000 these days and is such an obvious show piece that it comes with a separate taster to keep the main event sealed up. 

That one was only 240 bottles, though, so you might have a little more time to roll up your loose change and nab Release No. 37, whose 60.9% ABV Buffalo Trace Distillery bourbon provides a little more opportunity with its 508 bottles, each busting down the gate at $10,500 for a 700-milliliter bottle with a 50-milliliter taster sidekick.

The much less potent (43.1% ABV), though no less amazing, Release No. 38 is a 55-year-old (count 'em) blend of 1969 whiskies given the fullest sherry cask seasoning by the Tomintoul Distillery. It's 750 milliliters of glory listed at $6,950, but you know you'll need more than seven large to get one of its 430 bottles worldwide.

Even finding one of Release No. 39's 319 bottles will be a challenge, let alone coughing up $5,500 for this 59.1% ABV Japanese whisky from Hanyu Distillery in a stagflation economy. But what if you did? My stars and garters, you'd be a hero to yourself.

The Last Drop hasn't showcased a ton of bourbon, but when it does, look out. Uncut, unfiltered, and probably unopened by the majority of its owners, Release No. 37 is a triumph like none other. Their loss! I would drain this bourbon even if I'd spent my last dime on it. I would get married, divorced, and married again just to finish the bottle with my groomsmen. I hope I die with an empty glass of this in my hand, its very existence taunting my health insurance about unpaid copays. The only hitch is you can't go to heaven twice in one day.

Bump noses with me and inhale the lingering rose flowers in my lungs, embellished by a touch of spice. It's cherry blossoms and caramel hazelnut. I once tried Coca-Cola syrup without seltzer added, and this splendid blond beast sends up similar uncut delectability. We haven't even tasted it yet!

At the first budding, it's glorious, like the finest port wine mulled with cacao. "A candy bar in a whiskey glass," my co-taster gasped. The last time Buffalo Trace bottled up something this old, it was great, but not quite the best of its name. Whichever three barrels were blended into Release No. 37 deserve their own "I Love the '90s" Netflix special. Add a touch of water, and you'll meet a certain pineapple punchiness that makes the nose sweeter, but the taste tarter, in ways this whiskey can readily handle.

It's been a very blessed 2025 for yours truly's palate, having tasted exquisite jewels such as the Midleton Very Rare Silent Distillery Chapter Six (an Irish whiskey aged 50 years), kicking off with realistically obtainable endangered game like Heaven's Door Bootleg Volume VI, and trying — I will say it — the best whiskey of my life, the Bushmills 46-year. Yet here I am, the very same day I tried Midleton's half-century Irish, pouring myself a 55-year old scotch. This is not a brag but a sandbag: I get paid to live well, and still Release No. 38 is stunningly different and, indeed, perfect.

Let's start with that biscuit aroma. It's fig newtons, prune, and port, starting off familiar before becoming atypically bodied for a scotch. I taste fresh-cut grass and lilac for a second before, as with the scent, it treads the traditional ground of vanilla. Its real potency is the back end, a "Woah!" finish of savory salinity showcasing caraway, allspice, and mustard. The grass carpets it throughout, and I want to walk barefoot in it. With a smidge of water, its mintiness comes out. Yay.

I always want to call myself an Islay favoritist, but then Speysides just keep coming at me with these elder statesmen who have incredible tales to tell. Tomintoul Distillery, you're on notice for not including a plane ticket with purchase. How am I supposed to explain to my girlfriend that I've fallen in love twice this month?

My colleague in consumption is not a Japanese whisky fan in the least, finding them too reserved and single-note. Collect that chit when I tell you she picked this as her favorite without hesitation. For me, it's third place, but in what company? I enjoyed this immensely, and we're not ranking angel hierarchy here. Though Hanyu Distillery has been closed for over 20 years, The Last Drop's safari team was able to source two mizunara oak casks, marking this 22-year-old blended malt whiskey over two centuries in the making, if we're including cooperage.

A highly refined lemon scent eventually gives up fattier notes of sunflower seed or cashew butter (the mizunara's work, perhaps), not when you stick your nose in there but after pulling back to let its subtlety waft. The same persists in the drinking, which is consistent from tip to tonsils but does blossom a little into honey and then a very earthy fruitiness. I took it to be mango, my friend thought papaya, and the tasting notes called it banana, which feels most accurate. If you're bold enough to toss back a gulp, you can catch sweeter strawberries or raspberries, though the official profile never delivers its promised coconut. A pleasantly lingering bitterness from the mizunara makes this a delightful sipper. However, I most enjoyed this when a bit of water amplified the described vanilla and tonka notes.

You're lucky to lap up any of this, but if you get a golden ticket, I say Release No. 37 takes it. There's a reason so many Buffalo Trace labels ended up in my roundup of the best American whiskey brands, no matter how much I tried to adjust for personal taste. The folks behind Van Winkle, Blanton's, Stagg, Weller, and so many more simply know how to bring a barrel to fruition in Kentucky weather. If No. 37 were a wider release, it would readily vie for the top spot in this year's installment of the best bourbons I've tried.

However, I'd be so, so happy to try any of these again. I was fortunate enough to try Last Drop's 2023 collection, and it was fantastic then, too, but by comparison, this year's release is unimpeachable, unless you happen to taste peach notes. It's quite obviously a price too far for most of our budgets, but it sure is heartening to try whisky that tastes like it earns its high cost without buyer's remorse. We can argue worth all day, but if you want surefire satisfaction, you're paying for the certitude of these outstanding selections. I certainly would.