Welcome to Taste Test, where every week our critic Jonah Flicker explores the most buzzworthy and interesting whiskeys in the world. Check back each Sunday for his latest whiskey review.

Some might argue that it’s not fair to name a single-barrel release as one of the best whiskeys of the year so far (I realize 2026 is not even half over). By its very nature, the flavor of a single barrel release will vary depending on which barrel your bottle comes from. But I’m going to throw caution to the wind and do it anyway—the new Elijah Craig Single Barrel 15-Year-Old is that good, and I’d bet that holds true regardless of which bottle you taste.

In fact, I’d bet that there’s not a huge amount of variation between barrels, as the team at Heaven Hill is surely trying to find some consistency, at least as much as is possible for a single barrel release. Regular Elijah Craig bourbon is very good, and the barrel-proof versions are usually excellent (these are released by batch, so proof and flavor will vary here as well). The brand has had some higher age statement single barrel releases throughout its history, but currently the only one that’s really available on shelves is the 18-year-old. In the past, there have been even older age statements, ranging from 20 to 23 years old, but according to a rep for a brand these are no longer in production. So it’s a good thing we have this new age statement to fill the void.

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The 15, which just launched this week, is bottled at 108 proof, which is significantly higher than the 90 proof of the 18-year-old. And, of course, it’s made from the same Heaven Hill bourbon mashbill as many others produced at this Kentucky distillery: 78 percent corn, 10 percent rye, and 12 percent malted barley.  According to the marketing materials, 54 percent ABV is a nod to the date that Congress officially recognized bourbon as a “distinct product of the United States”—May 4, 1964. Whatever. But it is a smart move to bottle a bourbon this good at a higher proof (one that still doesn’t set your tongue on fire) so that you don’t lose too much flavor from dilution.

The bottle I tasted came from barrel 10 and was bottled on January 16, 2026. I can’t say that other barrels will taste as good as this one, but I would bet they are very close. There are notes of chocolate-cherry, grape soda, yellow cake with vanilla frosting, apple, brown sugar, and a bit of black pepper and cinnamon on the palate. Each sip ends with some pleasant heat on the back end, a nice, warming finish that lingers for a few minutes, along with some tannic oak that does not go overboard into bitterness.

It would have been hard for Heaven Hill to mess this one up, although not impossible, given the ample stock of well-aged and competently produced bourbon in the distillery’s many warehouses. And $150 per bottle doesn’t seem too exorbitant (let’s hope it doesn’t start to inflate well beyond that on the secondary market). If you really want to go deep, grab a couple of bottles from different barrels to sample side by side, but I think you will be pleased with whichever one you can find. There’s still a whole lot of 2026 left, but this could certainly end up being in my top five whiskeys of the year.

Score: 97