39 Best Gifts for People Who Take Whiskey Seriously

Why pick one present? A Flaviar membership introduces them to a digital whiskey-drinking club, with access to bottles and tastings, special whiskey releases, member events, and more.

Here’s a straight-forward monthly subscription to some of the best whiskeys, with categories covering Japanese, bourbon, and scotch. Recent selections have included Redbreast Lustau, Kavalan Concertmaster, and Barrell Bourbon 015, which ought to entice.

With these aromatic, spiced cherry, orange, and chocolate bitters aged in Woodford Reserve bourbon barrels, a cocktail will never taste boring again.

Cask strength, floor malting, tannins…even the most whiskey-literate person you know would be forgiven for getting tripped up on the distillers lingo. This guidebook will give them a refresher on all terms that matter in whiskey-making.

The Dead Rabbit is a world-renowned bar hiding in downtown Manhattan, with an ethos built on the lore of Irish gangsters and Irish whiskey. Its cocktail recipe book is full of utterly astounding cocktails, as well as a nefarious tale of blood and revenge (and drinking) told in graphic novel form. You have to read it to believe it.

Tap into their inner mad scientist with this cloche and torche, designed to steep cocktails in smoky flavors. That’ll be one hell of an Old Fashioned.

Japanese whiskies, as rare and sought-after as they’ve become, aren’t exactly easy to track down. So do your giftee a solid and score a bottle of Yamazaki 12, a quintessential Japanese offering that makes a long-lasting impression.

Survival is important and all, but so is always having a good age statement on hand. VSSL checks off both with this gadget, a flashlight, compass, bottle opener, and nine-ounce flask with two shot glasses collapsed into one.

The impressions at the bottom of this set of hand-blown whiskey glasses match the topography of iconic peaks: Half Dome, Denali, Mt. Rainer, and Mt. Whitney. For the kind of whiskey drinker who’s happiest out of doors.

Because it’d be frowned upon to bathe in straight whiskey.

Don’t turn your nose up at this bottled cocktail. For one, it’s mixed from eight-year-old Kentucky bourbon, five-year-old Indiana rye, saffron bitters, and demerara sugar. For another, it comes with an orange zest atomizer. That’s one hell of an Old Fashioned—and one that requires zero prep.

Sure, this Norlan glass looks cool as hell. But it’s also carefully crafted for drinking chilled whiskey right. A win-win.

Making the world’s first whiskey in a can isn’t the only groundbreaking thing Two Stacks is accomplishing in Ireland, but it is the most giftable. Imagine a picnic with a four-pack of these in two.

There are a million and one excellent, award-winning single malts that are worthy. But for our money, we’d gift Mortlach’s Wee Witchie, a flavorful expression distilled in an intriguing “2.81” method from a relatively under-the-radar distillery. It will surprise and impress.

Lagavulin’s 16 Year Old is a bonfire of a whisky, layering smoke on smoke on smoke atop a vanilla and spice foundation. In other words, a peaty single malt experience that cannot be missed.

Dickel bucked its Tennessee whiskey tradition and released an eight-years-aged bourbon that is a surprise of a sipper. Just ask our 2021 Esquire Spirit Awards lineup, which this bottle kicks off.

Maker’s Mark may be a bourbon heavyweight, but it isn’t afraid to get weird. Its Wood Finishing series, for which the distillery doctored already-matured whiskey with different wooden staves to draw out more flavor and character, is experimental and small batch—and covetable. (That explains the price.)

To tide them over in that short space of time between dinner and after-dinner drinks.

Barrelsmith learned a thing or two from whiskey distilling and stuck its Boulevardier, Manhattan, and Negroni in charred oak barrels to deepen their flavors.

This is a no-holds-barred spice bomb of a rye whiskey—getting them a bottle is the equivalent of a double-dog drinking dare. Plus, High West is an innovative Utah distillery they’ll definitely want to keep tabs on if they aren’t already.

We’ve never met a whiskey cocktail we didn’t like—unless, of course, that cocktail was poorly made. This elegantly crafted shaker does the art of cocktail-making justice, with features hidden in every curve of stainless steel.

Serve whiskey from something rad and retro, like this 24K-gold-and-porcelain decanter. Plus, it’ll replace all those sticky, half-empty bottles of booze on the bar cart.

If you’re looking for something for the whiskey drinker who thinks they’ve seen it all, point them in the direction of American single malts like Stranahan’s much-lauded Colorado whiskey. The category is newer, more niche, and relatively lawless, which adds to its intrigue.