Review #515 - Weller Special Reserve
The entry level product from Buffalo Trace's Weller range: this is the Special Reserve. Sporting a dark green label, this wheated bourbon has no age statement and is bottled at a relatively standard 45% ABV (90 proof).
Due to the craze for allocated bourbons, especially the Weller line, even this entry level bourbon is hard to find in some places, and some unscrupulous retailers will mark it up to multiple times its suggested price. Can it live up to that hype?
Weller Special Reserve
USA - Bourbon
MSRP: USD 30 (2025)
Available Price: USD 45 (2025, based on recent auction results)
Age Statement: NAS
Strength: 45% ABV
Tasting Methodology: Reviewed 2 times over 6 months; bottles at 80% and 40% fill levels at times of review. Tasted in a nosing glass each time, rested 15+ minutes
Nose: Brown sugar and sweet barbecued oak; there's a bit of youth, and with time, the oak becomes more pepper. Subtle fruit notes hide in the background: pineapple, lemon, some cherry and strawberry. It's relatively mild but pleasant.
Palate: A medium-thin mouthfeel, and light, spicy oak is the first flavor. Brown sugar, orange, and Welch's grape juice bring some sweetness, but there's also an herbal or sharp pine note. Later, the oak grows a little more leathery.
Finish: Sweet molasses, darker sugars, a bit of vanilla - decent baking notes. The fruit is faint now: just a hint of dark plum in the background. In the aftertaste, there's young oak, and it's all quite rounded and mellow. It's a medium-short finish.
Final Note: Quite mellow overall - a little bit simple and plain, though we did enjoy the sweetness from the variety of fruits across the parts of the tasting. The oak showed leather accents at times, maybe hinting at some age, but it also came across as piney and young at other times. Pleasant flavors, but this can't stand up to most higher-proof bourbons.
Value at MSRP is decent, since this is supposed to be quite reasonably priced. Even at a slightly inflated price, value is still okay - we never see this bottle on the shelf in our area, but it would be easy enough to get it for $10 to $20 over MSRP at auction. Still, at that price point, there is more interesting competition.
Our Average Rating: 5.8 / 10
In the current whisky landscape of increasing prices and variable quality, we've added a value rating to our reviews that relates to the score and the available pricing of each whisky. This roughly equates to a 0-10 scale; no reviews so far have exceeded a score of 10, although it is technically possible for the formula to produce a value rating higher than 10 with a high enough score and low enough price.
Value Rating (MSRP): 7.40
Value Rating (Available Price): 6.47
About Us: We're a husband and wife review team living in the Midwest United States. Generally, our reviews and tasting notes will be a compilation of both of our experiences with a whisky over several tasting sessions.
