The Bourbon Brand You're Better Off Avoiding, According To Reddit

As with most things that cost money and come in different shapes and sizes, fans of bourbon have bottles that they swear by and those that they absolutely despise. There are few places outside of Reddit where you'll find lots of these people together. If you want to sample some of this crowd-sourced wisdom, then there's one brand that — according to Reddit — you should avoid at all costs: W.L. Weller.

Buffalo Trace's wheated bourbon line has garnered a cult following for itself, partly due to its connection to the coveted Pappy Van Winkle recipe. However, close to 300 people agreed with the opinion that Weller — especially the entry-level Special Reserve that you can get for around $50 a bottle — is too pricey for what it offers (even when a user managed to snag it for $45, they still considered it overpriced). The vast majority of reviews spoke of the Weller Special Reserve as being thin-tasting and having rather low proof. It also doesn't offer much in the way of flavor expression, so for $50, bourbon fans were disappointed when they could've had something like Russell's Reserve 10 — or, for Buffalo Trace devotees, Eagle Rare.

Price tag and flavor aside, the one thing that people were incensed about was the name. You heard that right — the fact that they called it "Special Reserve" while offering not-at-all-special flavor ruffled a lot of feathers. "It's not special at all," one Redditor said, "It could be called Inferior Reserve."

The criticism wasn't limited to the Special Reserve. Other Weller bottlings fared only slightly better in terms of reviews. It seems like Weller Antique 107 is the one to pick if you absolutely must try Weller – Reddit regarded it as the one that offers the best bang for your buck. The bottle is MSRP-ed at $50, but if you spot one for less than $100 on the secondary market, the community agreed that it'd be worth pulling the trigger on. The Weller 12 Year and Full Proof also received decent reviews, but unless you can find them at MSRP ($50 and $50 to $70, respectively), they're skippers if you're looking for a good dram — it's almost impossible to find these at retail prices, anyway.

Even some of the more exclusive bottlings, such as the Weller Single Barrel, didn't fare much better. Redditors found it doesn't offer a more refined or necessarily better tasting experience than other labels from this line, even the bottom-shelf Weller Special Reserve, according to one user. More charitable tasters from r/bourbon called it a "solid" drink, but conceded that for the price it typically commands — over $500 on the secondary market — it's absolutely not worth the hype.

Again, these are opinions; not facts. If you're a big fan of wheated bourbons, you might find a Weller expression to be exactly what you're after in a sipper (if not, check out our ranked list of wheaters under $50). Our best advice: see if you can find a bar that has it in stock and give it a taste. It's not rare for someone's palate to be different from others!