Great Sprits For Toasting The Old Year And Welcoming The Newv

As midnight nears on New Year's Eve, we'll all have our sparkling wines ready to toast in the New Year, 2016.

But whether it is New Year's Eve or in the days immediately before and after, shouldn't we also take a look back at 2015? Shouldn't we take some time to think about all the good things that happened during the previous 12 months and celebrate them with a glass of a good spirit?

And if 2015 was a really, really crappy year that you would like to forget, then raise a glass in thanks that it's almost over! Here are selected spirits and fortified wines we've sipped over the past year for your "toastal" consideration. (Prices are approximate, and will vary from place to place.)

Some marketing whizzes associated with Absolut came up with a great idea: Have one basic recipe for vodka, then work with local entrepreneurs to source local ingredients and make the finished product. Oh yes, build them a small distillery. Similar to but different than its Seattle counterpart (below) — more herbal, less creamy, and a bit more straightforward. Think globally, drink locally?

In Seattle, the result of the Absolut project is a very pure-tasting, almost-creamy vodka that is well-structured with a long finish.

Very lively on the palate with great depth of flavors, mainly golden fruitiness, and a light note of caramel or brûlée.

Very smooth with hints of honey, a little salt but almost no bite, making it ideal for cocktails as well as sipping.

Tangy and almost gamey, a bit like a rambunctious fino sherry — nice over ice.

A light hand is given to the aromatics with subdued, delicate juniper; creamy and smooth.

Direct from the still at 55 percent alcohol, this is a great sipping tequila with flavors of green herbs, salty minerality, and a touch of ripe pear in the finish.

Beautiful sweet-fruity blend of botanicals with a floral yet spicy note and a structured suppleness.

From Martinique with surprising savory notes — from old wooden cooperage, as well as sweet tastes of light molasses and caramel.

Mellow with not much of a bite and flavored with dry woodiness and cinnamon and other baking spices.

Lightly structured with an entrancing combination of blueberry sweetness and dried blackberry savoriness.

Very smooth, very delicious with sweet barrel flavors and a light spiciness.

This Knappogue Castle is expressive without being flamboyant and offers flavors of ground wheat, toffee, and peanut brickle.

Fresh, fruity, rich, well-balanced with flavors of dark blackberries and some nuttiness — elegant and delicious.

Aged in a melange of woods — madeira, sauternes, and some port casks — this is a great sipping whiskey  with sweet barrel flavors and mixed spiciness.

A delightful array of flavors — white flowers, beeswax and baking spices — that are well-blended and well-balanced.

Luxurious silkiness with dark wood flavors and a little sappy sweetness, but little in the way of typical bourbon caramel, instead with finishing flavors more like those of a soft molasses cookie. 

Also from Wild Turkey, a vintage-dated whiskey with spicy herbal aromas like those of Green Chartreuse that are seldom found in bourbon — a whiskey cousin of gin!

Like a cross between bourbon and scotch, it has smooth flavors of grain and sweetness from the barrel with a pleasant whiff of smoke.