Weller 12 Review – Finally Finding Out What All the Fuss Is About
It was some years ago at Whiskylab here in The Netherlands, where Tom, the owner at the time, was quite literally unloading Weller 12 when I walked into the shop. Now, Weller and normal retail prices aren’t exactly words you see sharing the same sentence all that often anymore, so when I realised these were sitting there for around €60, I didn’t need much convincing. I certainly didn’t hesitate twice.
The funny thing is that after being so ridiculously pleased with myself for finding one at RRP, I proceeded to leave the bloody thing unopened for years.
Not because I was saving it as an investment. I don’t really do that. All the whisky in my collection is ultimately there to be drunk, because as far as I’m concerned that’s the only way you can truly appreciate what is inside these bottles. I love beautiful labels, ridiculous stories, old distilleries and collecting whisky probably a little more than is healthy for my bank account, but whisky is made for drinking. A sealed bottle can be beautiful, rare and valuable, but you’ll never know whether it’s actually any good until somebody pulls the cork (or unscrews the cap in case of this bottle).
The much less exciting explanation is simply that I never got around to it. There is always another sample arriving, another new release I desperately want to try or some strange bottle that jumps the queue. Every once in a while I would spot the Weller 12 sitting there and think that I really should open it soon, before inevitably reaching for something else.
Well, several years later, “soon” has finally arrived.
And perhaps that’s actually made this Weller 12 review a little more interesting, because the hype surrounding these bottles certainly hasn’t disappeared in the meantime. Weller Special Reserve isn’t particularly difficult to find here in The Netherlands, but things become considerably more complicated once you move further up the range. Antique 107 and Full Proof are generally nowhere to be found, while William Larue Weller sits firmly in that wonderful category of whisky I’d love to drink but have absolutely no intention of paying secondary-market prices for.
That leaves Weller 12 in an interesting position. It does appear here occasionally and, if the whisky gods happen to be smiling upon you, it can even appear at a sensible price. Unfortunately, elsewhere it has become one of those bottles where scarcity, reputation and the Weller name can result in prices that bear very little relation to what is actually inside the glass.
Thankfully, I paid around €60 for mine.
So forget the secondary market for a moment. Forget allocations, hunting bottles and all the noise surrounding Weller. I’ve finally opened the bottle, and there’s only one question I really care about now.
Is Weller 12 actually bloody good bourbon?
Listen to the review:
Tasting Notes: Weller 12
Stats
- Distillery: Buffalo Trace Distillery
- Type: Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
- Age: 12 Years Old
- ABV: 45% (90 Proof)
- Mash Bill: Wheated Bourbon
- Country: United States
- Flavour Profile: Dessert Delight
Twelve years is a respectable amount of time for any bourbon to spend in new American oak, particularly when you’re dealing with something bottled at a relatively gentle 45%. Weller replaces the rye traditionally used as the secondary grain in bourbon with wheat, which should theoretically give us a softer, sweeter style. Add twelve years of oak to that equation and I’m expecting maturity and plenty of sweetness, but I’m also slightly worried the barrel might have had a little too much time to make itself heard.
Thankfully, the first sniff quickly puts that concern to bed.
Nose
Freshly toasted bread is the first thing that comes to mind, still warm enough for a thick smear of butter to disappear into the surface, followed almost immediately by orange marmalade. Not the cheap, aggressively sweet stuff either, but proper marmalade with thick pieces of peel running through it, bringing just enough bitterness to stop all that sweetness from becoming cloying.
Then the fruit starts piling in. There are ripe cherries, dried apricots and a little overripe banana, followed by honey, vanilla and caramel that slowly melt into one another until I’m essentially imagining some ridiculously indulgent breakfast I absolutely shouldn’t be eating. Toasted bread covered in honey, orange marmalade and perhaps a spoonful of apricot preserve on the side. Apparently this is what happens when I review bourbon before dinner.
What I particularly like, though, is that the nose isn’t simply sweet. There is something grainy and almost malty underneath it all, like walking into a bakery while the darker loaves are still cooling on the racks. Toasted cereal, crusty brown bread and just the faintest suggestion of roasted grain give the fruit and caramel something to sit on, while old polished wood and a touch of leather eventually begin appearing around the edges.
That’s where those twelve years start becoming interesting. The oak is definitely there, but it isn’t barging into the room and demanding attention. Instead it feels beautifully settled into everything else, adding a slightly dusty maturity behind all that orange, apricot, honey and toasted bread.
This isn’t the sort of nose that punches you in the face. It just keeps making me stick my nose back into the glass, which, when you think about it, is probably considerably more useful.
Palate
The first sip is wonderfully soft and rounded. Honey and caramel arrive first, but before they can become too sugary there’s orange again, this time less marmalade and more freshly peeled fruit with some of that bitter white pith still attached. Apricot follows shortly afterwards, although the juicy fruit from the nose has dried out here and become something closer to an apricot kernel.
Then the bakery opens its doors again.
That toasted bread character is still here, only darker now, somewhere between rye-style brown bread and a deeply baked crust. Add a drizzle of honey, some warming baking spice and a little cracked pepper and there’s something wonderfully comforting about it. It isn’t spectacularly complicated, nor does it constantly change direction, but everything seems to belong exactly where it is.
The oak gradually becomes more assertive as I hold the whisky in my mouth. There is dry wood, a touch of char and something slightly bitter that reminds me of cocoa powder dusted over a dessert. Normally twelve years in new oak at only 45% would make me nervous about the wood taking over completely, but it never quite gets there. It pushes against the sweetness rather than smothering it, keeping the honey and caramel in check and giving the whisky considerably more structure than I expected.
And then there is the texture, which might be my favourite thing about the palate. Weller 12 isn’t enormous, but neither is it watery. There’s a lovely oily, almost creamy quality to it, with the wheat seemingly smoothing over the harder edges and allowing the whisky to roll lazily across the tongue.
Part of me desperately wants to try exactly this whisky at 50% ABV, because I suspect another five percentage points could turn the volume up considerably. But another part of me wonders whether that would defeat the point. There is something rather lovely about how little effort Weller 12 demands from you.
Before I’ve finished contemplating that, I’ve already taken another sip.
Finish
Orange peel hangs around first, accompanied by vanilla, honey and a little pepper before the sweeter flavours slowly begin drying out. The oak that had been patiently sitting underneath the palate finally gets its chance to move forward, bringing dry wood, gentle char and that slightly bitter cocoa character with it.
There is something almost like the crust of heavily toasted bread towards the end as well, with the sweetness having largely disappeared and the grain and oak left behind. It works nicely, especially with a final little flicker of citrus oil keeping things from becoming too woody.
My only real complaint is that I want it to last longer. After twelve years of maturation and such a beautifully composed nose and palate, I was hoping the finish would sit around for a while and allow me to enjoy the aftermath. Instead it fades rather politely.
It is a very pleasant finish, don’t get me wrong, and there is something almost dangerously drinkable about the way the orange, vanilla, honey and oak quietly disappear. But this is probably the one moment where that 45% ABV really shows. Just as things become interesting, Weller 12 has already started putting on its coat.
Food Pairing
After spending half the review apparently wandering around an imaginary bakery, I’m hardly going to pair this with oysters.
Give me a warm bread pudding, preferably with plenty of vanilla, some orange zest and just enough caramelisation around the edges to give you those slightly darker, almost burnt-sugar bits. The bread would pick up that lovely toasted grain character, while orange and vanilla slot straight into the sweeter side of the Weller.
Although frankly, there’s another perfectly acceptable option here: pour a decent measure after dinner, find a comfortable chair and forget about the food altogether. At 45%, Weller 12 is dangerously well suited to that sort of evening.
Who Is Weller 12 For?
I can completely understand why Weller 12 has become such an attractive bourbon for people coming from Scotch. There is none of the aggressive spice or enormous alcohol hit that can occasionally make American whiskey feel like hard work when you’re used to single malt. Instead you get fruit, honey, toasted grain, vanilla and mature oak wrapped up in this wonderfully soft texture.
That doesn’t mean it’s boring. Far from it. The orange marmalade and toasted bread on the nose give it real character, while the apricot, cocoa, honey and increasingly dry oak on the palate provide enough complexity to keep me interested. It’s just all presented rather politely.
If you’re somebody who lives on barrel-proof bourbon, however, I can imagine Weller 12 leaving you wanting more. There is no enormous explosion of flavour here, no alcohol-driven intensity and certainly no finish that lasts until bedtime. At 45%, this is never going to bully you into paying attention.
But I don’t think it wants to.
This feels like bourbon for pouring generously rather than measuring nervously. Something I could put on the table with a couple of friends, disappear into conversation and suddenly realise we’ve made a rather alarming dent in the bottle.
At €60, I think that’s a wonderful thing.
At some of the prices people ask for Weller 12?
That’s where we need to have a very different conversation.
Verdict
After years of having this bottle sitting unopened on the shelf and wondering whether Weller 12 could possibly live up to the reputation surrounding it, the answer is simultaneously yes and no.
As whisky, I really like it.
The nose is easily my favourite part. That combination of warm toasted bread, orange marmalade, cherry, apricot, honey, caramel and old polished wood is exactly the sort of bourbon profile I can lose myself in. It smells mature without becoming dusty, sweet without turning into liquid confectionery and familiar enough to immediately scream bourbon while still having a few little quirks of its own.
The palate doesn’t quite reach the same heights, but it is delicious. Honey, orange, toasted bread, apricot kernel, cocoa, pepper and mature oak come together beautifully, helped enormously by that creamy, oily texture. The finish is the weak link for me, simply because it disappears sooner than I want it to.
And perhaps that’s really the story of Weller 12.
It’s beautifully balanced rather than spectacular. There are bourbons with more intensity, more complexity, bigger flavours and considerably longer finishes. What Weller 12 does remarkably well is bring everything together without anything feeling particularly out of place. The wheat softens it, the age gives it maturity and the relatively low bottling strength makes it almost absurdly easy to drink.
At roughly €60, I would happily buy another bottle.
At twice that? Things become considerably more difficult.
At some of the truly silly secondary-market prices I’ve seen attached to Weller 12 over the years? Not a chance.
Because scarcity doesn’t make whisky taste better.
Weller 12 is very good bourbon. It might even be excellent bourbon when you judge it at its intended price. But if you spend a small fortune expecting some mythical liquid that will fundamentally change your understanding of American whiskey, I suspect you’re going to wonder what all the fuss was about.
Final Thoughts
There is something rather satisfying about finally opening a bottle that has been staring at you from the shelf for years. I can still remember walking into Whiskylab and seeing Tom unloading these, realising what they cost and immediately deciding that one was coming home with me. At the time, simply finding Weller 12 at a normal price felt like a little whisky victory.
Then I did absolutely nothing with it.
It wasn’t deliberate. I wasn’t waiting for the value to increase and I certainly wasn’t preserving it as some sacred collectible. There was simply always another whisky to try. Another review to write, another sample to open, another bottle that somehow managed to sneak ahead of it in the queue.
But opening it now has reminded me why I don’t particularly enjoy treating whisky as an investment in the first place. For years this bottle was worth precisely as much to me as the space it occupied on my shelf. Tonight it gave me orange marmalade and warm toast, honey and apricots, cocoa, caramel, old oak and a couple of very enjoyable glasses of bourbon.
I’ll take the second option.
Would I have enjoyed a little more power? Definitely. Would I love the finish to hang around considerably longer? Absolutely. And if Buffalo Trace ever decided to hand me this exact twelve-year-old whiskey at 50% or thereabouts, I suspect you’d have a difficult time getting the glass back from me.
But I’m also not disappointed. Quite the opposite.
The problem with Weller 12 isn’t really Weller 12. It’s everything that has grown around it. The scarcity, the hunt, the inflated prices and that strange idea whisky sometimes develops that because something is difficult to buy, it must therefore be extraordinary.
Strip all of that away and there’s a lovely bottle of mature wheated bourbon underneath. One I’d happily drink again and one I’d happily pay around €60 for again.
I just wouldn’t spend years hunting for it.
Because ultimately, Weller 12 is exactly what I hoped I had bought that day at Whiskylab: not an investment, not a trophy and certainly not a bottle destined to remain sealed forever.
Just really enjoyable whisky.
And now that I’ve finally opened the bloody thing, I intend to drink it.
