Our selection of the best new-release whiskies to keep you warm this winter – and they’re all under £100
Brummell has covered some special whiskies in 2025 – Gordon & McPhail’s 85YO Glenlivet; Highland Park 56; House of Hazelwood’s One For The Next 50YO grain whisky and Midleton Very Rare’s 50YO Silent Distillery Irish whiskey… not to mention the Distillers One of One charity auction of literally unique bottlings.
Incredible rarities, collectors’ items. But what about a whisky you wouldn’t hesitate to open. Some very affordable and surprising drams are well worth trying – and you can pick more than one! Here are the best new whiskey releases of 2025 under £100…
PAUL JOHN CHRISTMAS EDITION 2025
Best for: keeping Christmas going into January
The classic wintery Dickensian Christmas scene of a warming whisky by the fire is as far from hot, humid Goa as it gets. But award-winning Indian single-malt distillery Paul John has produced a limited-edition Christmas special every year since 2018. Leaning into Goa’s tropical climate to give a distinctive maturation profile, the 2025 festive release has been matured in ex-bourbon casks and finished in cream sherry (a blend of oloroso and sweet PX) casks to produce a rich, golden liquid with notes of butterscotch, apple, dark caramel and cinnamon.
£63.95; thewhiskyexchange.com
GLEN SCOTIA 12 YEAR OLD
Best for: boat drinks
Campbeltown is the smallest Scotch region – just one town, at the end of the West Coast appendage. Like other places that benefit from the North Atlantic Current, it sustains palm trees and other unexpected Mediterranean, even Caribbean touches. And so does Glen Scotia, one of Campbeltown’s three distilleries. Forget Lilt; this 12YO has the best claim to a totally tropical taste – its dominant flavour is pineapple. It’s also very maritime, with salted caramel smoothness. A whisky for sailing round the West Indies, or round the Isle of Wight.
£45; glenscotia.com
BUSHMILLS 12 YEAR OLD
Best for: fortified wine drinkers
The Irish whiskey from the north Antrim coast now has fortified-wine-finished single malts throughout its age statements. And this marsala-influenced 12YO replaces and elevates a serviceable 10YO. Triple distillation, that particularly Irish method usually associated with mixed-grain pot-still whiskey, produces a clean, fruity new-make, which is then developed in a combination of bourbon and sherry casks. In this new expression, the barriques that previously held the dark, sweet Sicilian wine add honeyed sultanas and turn orchard notes into toffee apples.
£42.25; thewhiskyexchange.com
KI ONE 2021, SINGLE CASK #0200
Best for: surprising people
Looking for a surprising Asian whisky nation? Step up, Korea. In 2020, this was the country’s first craft whisky distillery, and a couple more have followed it. This single cask, bottled exclusively for The Whisky Exchange, was distilled in 2021. Which is the second surprise. For such a young whisky, it has remarkable complexity with notes as diverse as mint Aero, grappa, stewed prunes and marzipan. If this is how good Ki One can be at just four years old, this is a distillery to watch.
£94.95; thewhiskyexchange.com
PORT ASKAIG CASK STRENGTH 2024
Best for: a drink round the firepit
Port Askaig is not a distillery itself, but a line of independent bottlings of Islay single malt whisky. The source is not named, but there is a distillery half a mile north of the Port Askaig as the barnacle goose flies. This cask-strength Port Askaig (bottled in 2024 but only released in 2025) is melded from a plethora of barrels, butts and hogsheads. It bursts with barbecued lemons and charcoal smoke, but settles into delicious espresso, liquorice, chocolate and cherry notes.
£63.95; portaskaig.com
WHITE PEAK WIRE WORKS BOURBON BARREL
Best for: pairing with an IPA
When it comes to whisky, it’s proud Edward’s army that is, for once, the scrappy underdog in the relationship between England and Scotland. But White Peak Distillery in Derbyshire is setting new standards for English single malt: its Wire Works Bourbon Barrel has been named whisky of 2026 by the Whisky Exchange. Where other English malt distilleries have arguably aped a particular Scotch style, this has real local character – helped by its use of brewers’ yeast from nearby Thornbridge Brewery’s Jaipur IPA. The result is rich and creamy, with peach, ginger and lemon curd notes.
£55.75; thewhiskyexchange.com
LIVINGSTONE RARE, MACBETH ACT II, SOLDIER
Best for: winter walks in the woods
The Macbeth Collection is designer Lexi Livingstone Burgess’s cast of whiskies, which represent the 42 characters in the Shakespeare’s play. For each, Elixir Spirits head blender Oliver Chilton selected a single malt that delivers the spirit of each character description as sketched in words by the whisky writer Dave Broome, and as birds by illustrator Quentin Blake. Act II took to the stage in 2025 and Soldier is a beefy Benrinnes, aged in refill sherry casks for 12 years, with the earthiness of a veteran soldier behind a tree branch.
£84.95; livingstonerare.com
CASK & CRUST PULTENEY 2013
Best for: polishing off with a pie
During the winter, a dram isn’t just for after dinner – it can be the perfect accompaniment to a hearty meal. But which whisky with which meal? Hairy Biker cook Si King has teamed up with whisky ownership organisation Cask Trade, to select a trio of single malts to pair with special recipes of King’s PROPA! Pies and raise money for food banks. There’s an 11YO Benrinnes (steak pie), an 11YO Pulteney (chicken, haggis and bacon) and a 15YO Ben Nevis 2010 (mushroom and blue cheese). My pick is the fresh, vibrant Pulteney.
£39.99; casktrade.square.site
THE CAIRN CRN57° 18 YO BLENDED MALT
Best for: a wild and stormy night
Legally, this distillery in the Cairngorms, which began distilling in spring 2022, could bottle its output as whisky now. But quality requires longer maturation. In the meantime, it has released a collection of blended malts that are a liquid road map of the direction they expect The Cairn to take: a taste of things to come. The sweet spot is the 18YO, with orchard aromas, and a complex fruit salad with banana, lychee and strawberry – warming you after a walk that ends in the dark, while the rain lashes the window…
JOHNNIE WALKER BLACK RUBY
Best for: mixing things up
The joy of a blended whisky is that there is no lingering single-malt guilt if you add ingredients. This new Johnnie Walker expression is unapologetically made for mixing – be that simply with tonic, or a raspberry-tinged sour. Master blender Emma Walker has created a blend with sweet red-fruit and blackberry notes dialled up to 11. A lot of red-wine-casked components give it full-on fruit, perceived sweetness and an almost red hue. It’s an ideal ingredient for wintery twists on classic cocktails – particularly in a boulevardier, where it adds warmth and complex layers.
£40.75; spiritly.com
SUNTORY TOKI BLACK
Best for: solo drinking
By solo, I don’t mean drinking on your own; I mean drinking during a jazz solo. This limited-edition Japanese blend is inspired by Tokyo’s listening-bar culture, the home of the highball. Topped up with soda, this lightly smoky blend of grain and malt whiskies makes a tasty, lingering wind-down drink to accompany a good, long jazz track. To mark the special edition, Suntory released an even more limited pressing of a 12” vinyl recording of an improvisation between Japanese jazz great Ryota Nozaki (aka Jazztronik) and American producer, saxophonist and rapper Terrace Martin.
£39.50; masterofmalt.com
