There are plenty of mediocre co-branded whiskeys on the market these days, but Elijah Craig’s 2025 Ryder Cup Limited Edition Bourbon may be at the top of the leaderboard. Heaven Hill and the PGA didn’t just tweak the proof or pick a few single barrels to commemorate the 2025 Ryder Cup — they created an entirely new finish.
Elijah Craig Ryder Cup Edition is a matured small batch finished in a mixture of toasted applewood and toasted sugar maple. To create this whiskey, Elijah Craig bourbon is finished with staves of each wood separately for eight weeks, and later the toasted sugar maple and applewood finishes are combined (75 percent sugar maple and 25 percent applewood).
You might expect an apple-maple bourbon to be cloyingly sweet, but because the flavors are coming from wood staves and not artificial or natural flavorings, this whiskey doesn’t really take on additional sweetness. Instead, the sweetness is tweaked away from the caramel and brown sugar Elijah Craig is known for, and toward the characters of the finishing staves.
Tasting notes provided by Heaven Hill suggest notes of apple pie on the nose and rich maple, caramel, and candy apple on the palate, but these flavors are well balanced against the bourbon’s deeper cocoa and baking spice flavors. The finish remains slightly spicy despite the extra wood influences. The Ryder Cup release is proofed down to Elijah Craig’s typical 94 proof (or 47 percent ABV). Sure, I’d love to see this whiskey at cask strength someday, but there’s a reason that we’re seeing a more moderated strength: they have cocktails in mind.
As you probably suspected, Elijah Craig 2025 Ryder Cup Edition will make an appearance at the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black golf course in New York. The “Official Bourbon of the Ryder Cup” will be served at an on-site speakeasy in the Fan Zone. One of the ways they’ll be serving it is in a cocktail called the “Mulligan.” The Mulligan is essentially an Arnold Palmer with bourbon. Depending on your personal preferences, you might also know the Mulligan as a Dirty Arnold Palmer, or a John Daly, or Kentucky Tea and Lemonade. At the Ryder Cup, they’ll come garnished with a lemon wheel and a flag (like the pin, on the green, get it?).
If you’re not attending the Ryder Cup, though, you’re just a trip to the liquor store and a trip to the grocery store away from having one from the comfort of your own home. Elijah Craig Ryder Cup Edition will be available nationwide at retailers. A word to the wise: the last day of summer is about a month away, so you don’t have a lot of time for Dirty Arnolds left. But a whiskey with applewood and maple finishes is the kind of thing you’ll want around for the start of fall when Old Fashioneds and hot drinks are back in play.
And at just $70, it’ll be nice to have this bottle on the bar through the colder months, while you wait for your local greens to thaw out.
G. Clay Whittaker is a Maxim contributor covering lifestyle, whiskey, cannabis and travel. His work has also appeared in Bon Appetit, Men’s Journal, Cigar Aficionado, Playboy and Esquire. Subscribe to his newsletter Drinks & Stuff for bourbon picks, perspectives on drinks, and stuff.