Best Booze of 2025: Our Top Picks for the Year

In our effort to become your go-to source for recommendations for the best affordable booze, we taste a lot of canned cocktails, hard seltzer, wines, and cheap spirits this year. It was honestly pretty tough to pick the best potent potables we tried (shout out to pretty much every mezcal on our best mezcal under $40 list) but somehow we managed. Cheers!

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Runner-Up

Old Grand-Dad Bourbon

Total Wine

You can find a bottle of this bourbon for well under $20, but you’d never know it’s cheap if you tasted it blind. It’s super duper smooth and so easy to drink. There’s notes of vanilla and nutmeg and clove, and it finishes with a chest-warming burn. After tasting it against other bourbons in our cheap bourbon taste test, we’re Old Grand-Dad converts.

Credit: Liv Averett / Total Wine

Rating:

10/10

Sporks

Winner

Baileys Espresso Creme

Total Wine

If you love Baileys, then you need to try Baileys Espresso Creme. Actually, even if you don’t like Baileys you need to try Baileys Espresso Creme. It’s like original Baileys—just better. The espresso makes the chocolate flavors pop and adds some delicious complexity that keeps you sipping. This was a real eye-opener in our Baileys flavors taste test (and not just because of the espresso). And it’s the best booze we tried all year.

Credit: Liv Averett / Total Wine

Rating:

10/10

Sporks

About the Author

Hi! I’m the editor-in-chief of Sporked. I will never turn down a fresh-shucked oyster but I’ll also leap at whatever new product Reese’s releases and I love a Tostitos Hint of Lime, even if there is no actual lime in the ingredients. Why you should trust me: I have been writing about food and beverages for well over a decade and am an avid at-home cook and snacker. I began my career writing about fine dining and recipes, moved into cocktails and spirits, and now I talk about groceries. If you can eat it or drink it, I’ve probably written about it. What I buy every week: Trader Joe’s dried okra. Appleton Farms prosciutto from Aldi. Some sort of Trader Joe’s cheese (I’m into the aged gouda at the moment). Frozen waffles (usually the Eggo Cinnamon Toast Minis). Spindrift water (loving the Cosmopolitan right now). Favorite ranking: Smoked salmon. Imagine me as Scrooge McDuck but instead of coins I’m diving into a vault of slippery smoked salmon slices. Pure joy. I also found some real steals in that taste test! Least favorite ranking: Canned oysters. I had such high hopes for this but it quickly became a chore. The kitchen smelled like an uncleaned aquarium.