For years, GOLF.com’s weekly Clubhouse Eats column has aspired to celebrate the game’s most delectable food and drink.
Over the course of this year, golf course and golf resort chefs have provided intel on how to make perfect cookies, brisket, breakfast burritos and cornbread to replicating cocktails like the classic Sazerac.
But nothing gets our readers’ attention like the Masters — and especially Augusta National’s venerable menu for players and patrons alike.
This year, stories featuring the method for replicating the club’s famous Azalea cocktail and chicken salad and pimento cheese sandwiches were all among the year’s most-read, but there was one Masters story that reigned supreme: GOLF executive editor Alan Bastable’s article on the whiskey that was poured at the annual Masters Champions dinner: Van Winkle Family Reserve Rye.
While the Champions Dinner is a private affair, a tantalizing glimpse of the gathering was posted on Instagram, where a close-up of the bottle and its label was on full display.
A bottle of Van Winkle Family Reserve Rye reportedly retails for $120, but it’s nearly impossible to find at that price. A quick Google search revealed the lowest available price for the 13-year-old Kentucky Straight Rye whiskey is currently around $1,000, with some prices as high as $1,400.
At the Champions dinner, the whiskey accompanied defending champion Scottie Scheffler’s selected menu of cheeseburger sliders, firecracker shrimp and meatball and ravioli bites for appetizers, a Texas-style chili for a first course, and wood-fired cowboy ribeye or blackened redfish for the main course. A warm chocolate chip skillet cookie was served for dessert.
You can read Bastable’s full article below, or to view it in its original form, click here.
The most-read Clubhouse Eats article of 2025: This $1,000 whiskey was poured at Masters Champions Dinner
By Alan Bastable
The Masters Champions Dinner is among the most exclusive — and revered — evenings in all of sports. Thirty-plus green-coat winners sharing stories of glories past over ribeyes and full-bodied reds? That’s the good stuff.
You won’t soon catch a livestream of the gathering, but this year Augusta National did give us a tantalizing peek behind the drapes by way of a short-form social-media video that shows various scenes from the event: club staffers ironing the tablecloth; kitchen workers in Augusta National-branded chef coats plating dishes; and Scottie Scheffler, the defending champion and dinner’s host this year, noshing on a bite-sized burger.
One quick cut also revealed a rare whiskey that was on offer Tuesday evening: Van Winkle Family Reserve Rye.
If you’re a whiskey connoisseur, you may be familiar with Van Winkle. If you’re not, you likely won’t be surprised to hear that, like many of the attendees at the Champions Dinner, the whiskey is legendary.
“The Van Winkle line is one of the most respected names out there and most difficult to find,” Tom Fischer, a whiskey journalist and educator who founded Bourbon Blog, told GOLF.com.
Fischer said to earn a “rye” designation, a whiskey needs “at least 51% rye in the mashbill, versus bourbon which needs to be 51% or more corn.” He added, “At 13 years, Van Winkle Family Reserve Rye is layered and well-balanced: think leather, clove, light hints of some floral against serious oak, old library notes, and sweet tobacco.”
When asked if he was surprised to see the rye served at the Champions Dinner, Fischer said, “A bit, because it’s the rarest of the Van Winkles.” Fischer said the distillery doesn’t release numbers as to their whiskeys’ rarity, but that the rye is thought to be the hardest to attain in the Van Winkle lineup.
The whiskey retails for $120 a bottle but “good luck finding it for that,” Fischer said. It’s about as rare as a green jacket. You can pick up a bottle on the secondary market, Fischer said, but expect to fork over at least $1,000 and up to $1,500 or more. “Insane prices,” he said, “but it is where we are at in whiskey.”
If you’re not into whiskey-hunting or handing over a paycheck for a taste, Fischer recommends a couple of more gettable alternatives: WhistlePig 15 Rye Whiskey or Hard Truth Rye Whiskey. Both are from Indiana, he said, and “both are delicious.”
