Weller 12 Year Bourbon

Great bottle. Poor man’s Pappys for a fraction of the $$$.

This is everything it’s cracked up to be. It’s definitely an elevated version of special reserve with much more oak and caramel present. If it wasn’t so hard to find this would be my everyday sipper. Truly a great bourbon.

Smooth as can be.

The "rare" Weller and BTAC Bourbons are hitting shelves now (mid Nov) and I finally found a retailer willing to sell the Weller 12 without BS. Tried 3 stores, one was holding their stock for a stupid raffle in a month despite a paying customer standing right in front of them. Another likely sold all their stock immediately to "friends" and a third sold me one no questions asked but there was a limit of 1 bottle. Finally scored! Should we really have to endure these crazy shenanigans just to grab a bottle of 12 year old bourbon? I've never had the Weller 12 so I hope it's worth the trouble. Let's find out! Enjoyed neat in a Glencairn, no water. On the nose fairly similar to regular Weller SR. I get similar fruity notes with more of a vanilla buttercream and butterscotch undercurrent and surprisingly fair amount of alcohol burn. On the palate, starts pretty sweet maybe sweeter than the WSR and nice velvety feel. While the WSR gives off a honeyed note for me, I do get a more mature maple pecan note here with sweet caramel but it's not overly strong, likely due to proof. Very smooth with little warming burn and some nice spice. The finish brings more sweet notes and light barrel but also a nice light maple note. I really thought there would be more barrel notes here being aged longer than standard SR. I think I get more barrel, and particularly a light tobacco from the SR than from the 12. I will admit I miss the tobacco note but the maple note present in 12 is nice. Overall very pleased with the Weller 12. I am a big BTrace fan in general so this doesn't disappoint. It's good wheated bourbon for sure, but I'm not sure it's good enough to go through all the hoops to acquire. It's not life altering or anything, and it's not my favorite bourbon by far. Although as far as wheaters go (compared to Makers, Larceny, or standard WSR) it probably is my favorite. Even so, given its rare nature it can't be a daily drinker for me because it can't be easily reacquired. So I'd stick to WSR as a regular daily wheater, given it's much cheaper (half the cost of the 12 here), fairly available, and you really don't lose that much in flavor to the 12. I paid $40 at retail for 12 and thought I overpaid until the next retailer was asking $50 for it but was already sold out. I love BTrace products but the supply and demand pricing and "rarity" of many of their products is frustrating, whether real or just genius marketing of "scarcity" from BTrace I'm not sure. Cheers!