Wheat whiskey — in which wheat comprises at least 51% of the mashbill — tends to fly under the radar for a lot of American whiskey drinkers. It’s often mistakenly referred to as a type of bourbon or confused with wheated bourbons.
As Food & Wine reports, Maker’s Mark, the world’s best-known wheated bourbon, launched its own wheat whiskey, Star Hill Farm Whisky, in 2025. The first new mashbill in the brand’s 70-plus-year history, it’s one of the most high-profile wheat whiskeys released to date. It’s also “the best,” according to the judges at the 2026 World Whiskies Awards, who awarded it a gold medal and named it both America’s Best Wheat Whiskey and World’s Best Wheat Whiskey.
Star Hill Farm is named after the 1,100-acre farm that’s home to the Maker’s Mark distillery, as well as the watershed that supplies it. It’s an inflection point in the distillery’s ongoing commitment to sustainability through regenerative agriculture, which not only helps the environment by preventing soil erosion and sequestering carbon, but also creates better-tasting crops — and, by extension, better-tasting whiskey.
The World Whiskies Awards judges clearly agreed. Its description of Star Hill Farm’s flavor profile mentions its “caramel apple and rose floral nose. Baking spice, black tea, charred oak smoke, leather, sorghum, and vitamin on the palate. Light-bodied, quick, dry finish.”
Unlike many wheat whiskeys that use corn as a secondary grain, Star Hill Farm eschews it entirely. The finished product is a blend of two different mashbills. One consists of 70% soft red winter wheat and 30% malted barley; the other is 100% malted soft red winter wheat.
The wheat is grown at the distillery’s farm and is the same wheat that’s used in Maker’s Mark. There’s no age statement on the bottle, but according to the brand, the blend is aged seven to eight years and bottled at a cask strength of 57.35% ABV.
The award-winning 2025 Star Hill Farm whiskey is the first in what’s intended to be an annual series, with its mashbill and other variables changing from year to year. That makes the 2025 bottling a one-time-only affair, and now that it’s been named world’s best, its collectibility is sure to increase.
Now in its 19th year, the 2026 World Whiskies Awards judged more than 9,000 entries from 52 whisky regions spanning Scotch, Irish, American, Japanese, and world whisky. Each entry was blind-tasted and judged by an international panel of industry experts. This year’s winning whiskies were announced at a ceremony in London on March 25th.
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