How This Cheap Buffalo Trace Bourbon Became a Whiskey Grail

The rise a once-accessible wheater, from shelf sleeper to baby Pappy to unobtanium.

Published September 21, 2024

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“I can vividly remember this,” says author and Bourbon+ magazine founder Fred Minnick. “I was at a bar called Jack’s Lounge, no longer in business. The bartender was Joy Perrine, an amazing, brilliant woman in the whiskey hall of fame, since passed away. She was making cocktails. I liked them fine, but they were never my thing.

“I said, ‘Joy, I wanna drink a really nice bourbon.’ She pulled out Weller 12 Year Old. And that’s what I drank.”

weller 12 whiskey bottle — Weller 12 used to be a common sight on store shelves. No longer …

There aren’t many whiskeys that can make someone sigh like Minnick sighs after he tells that story. Weller 12 is one of them.

These days, the bourbon is about as hard to find as Jack’s Lounge or Joy Perrine. Technically, it retails for around $45 but good luck finding it on a liquor store shelf. Demand for this delicious wheated bourbon has driven the liquid underground.

In 2017, it first topped the list of sought-after spirits on the massive booze search tool Wine-Searcher. This rise in interest has had consequences on supply. In 2014, the average price of Weller 12 on the legal market was $47. Now, it’s $275.

What’s so special about Weller 12?

The tale of Weller 12 in the past decade or so is a melancholy one for bourbon drinkers — a story of beautiful flavors, secondary hype and a tragedy of price increase.

“Probably after Pappy, Weller 12 is the hardest one to get,” says Blake Riber, founder of the blog Bourbonr and the whiskey service Seelbach’s.

buffalo trace whiskey lineup — Buffalo Trace bought the Weller name in 1999. The distillery introduced Weller 12 in 2001.

The Weller line of whiskeys is named for William Larue Weller, a whiskey salesman in the late 1800s who had a hand in the famed Stitzel-Weller distillery. Buffalo Trace says he was one of the first distillers to offer a bourbon with a high content of wheat rather than rye for flavor, a claim that has been disputed.

Weller 12 is a wheated whiskey, its barrels aged at least 12 years in Buffalo Trace’s rickhouses. In the beginning, it retailed for around $20.

Stitzel-Weller closed in 1992, and Buffalo Trace bought the Weller name in 1999. The distillery introduced Weller 12 in 2001, and it was eventually joined by a number of other Wellers as Buffalo Trace’s premiere wheaters after Pappy Van Winkle and William Larue Weller (an especially rare, and especially expensive, bottle).

Weller 12 is a wheated whiskey, its barrels aged at least 12 years in Buffalo Trace’s rickhouses. In the beginning, it retailed for around $20.

How similar is it to Pappy?

Buffalo Trace refuses to release the specifics of its mashbills, to some drinkers’ chagrin. But we know for a fact that its wheated mashbill is used for all of the distillery’s wheaters, including both the Weller and Van Winkle lines (exceptions being the CYPB Weller, Van Winkle Rye and the experimental Daniel Weller bourbon).

That means Weller 12 is the same mashbill, age and proof as Van Winkle Lot B — which often goes for more than $1,000 these days on the secondary market. In fact, Buffalo Trace told me that the difference between the two is simply that the Van Winkle family selects barrels to be included in Van Winkle Lot B; Buffalo Trace tasters select the barrels for Weller 12.

pappy van winkle — Weller used to be known as the the “poor man’s Pappy” — similar mashbill, almost as old.

“We use a lower distillation and entry proof, which contributes to the soft, round, almost ‘creamy’ taste and mouthfeel of the whiskey,” Amy Preske, who previously handled PR at Buffalo Trace, wrote me in an email. Tasters have different ways of describing the unique flavor profile of good wheaters — “sweet,” “round” and “smooth” are common ones — but whatever it is, Weller 12 seems to have it.

Then there’s the age. Plenty of good $30 bourbons these days have five- or six-year age statements. Weller 12 doubles them.

“In my opinion, the sweet spot of bourbon is between eight and twelve years old,” Minnick says. Age tends to marry whiskey’s most delicious flavors together and mellow any off-notes — up to a point. Any more time risks “over-oaking,” when tannin flavors, which the oak barrel imbues in the whiskey, become too strong. “Eight to twelve years old is when the magic happens,” Minnick says.

What does Weller 12 taste like?

“Weller 12 is strong and smooth,” says Harlan Wheatley, Buffalo Trace’s master distiller.

“Caramel, dark cherry and orange,” says Riber.

“The thing I’ve always liked,” says Minnick, “is that I can put on my tongue, and the flavor just sits there. Even the very best barrel-proof whiskeys, I can appreciate and enjoy them when I put them on my tongue, but eventually, I feel that barrel strength. With Weller 12, I’d almost compare it to melted butter.”

Why is Weller 12 so expensive now?

Drinkers quickly caught onto this mix of age, wheat and affordability. By the mid-2000s, Weller 12 popularity was booming, but you could still find it on liquor store shelves at retail price, or for fair rates at good whiskey bars.

Then the Pappy hype train rolled in. By the late 2000s and early 2010s, celebrities and chefs had turned Pappy Van Winkle 15-, 20- and 23-year-olds into prized collectors’ items. After those disappeared from shelves and found their way to secondary market sales at astronomical price markups, the other Van Winkle releases were next to go.

And when people started asking liquor store owners what was “like Pappy,” but available, well … they told the truth. Same mashbill, almost as old. Weller 12.

Affordable, available Weller 12 went the way of the dodo. Despite its low MSRP, it’s essentially considered a luxury good — just look at the wealthy Dutton family guzzling it down as their bourbon of choice on Yellowstone. Today, even much more affordable (and frankly, less good) Wellers like Antique are marked up and hard to find, as demand works its way down the food chain.

A 12-year lag between barreling and bottling makes it hard to respond to demand in a timely fashion

This is not to say the decline of Weller 12 is Pappy’s fault. The finding and hoarding of underpriced excellent whiskeys is a reverberation of the Bourbon Boom — the bottles that are hunted down after the initial unicorns were made extinct. It’s supply and demand, plain and simple.

Buffalo Trace did begin doubling its production in 2023 thanks to a new distillery, but it points out that a 12-year lag between barreling and bottling makes it hard to respond to demand in a timely fashion. Any Weller 12 you find today was bottled in 2011, after all. But it sure would be nice if there were more of it.

In its way, the extirpation of Weller 12 was sadder than what happened to Pappy. “Pappy attracts people who don’t really follow bourbon,” Minnick says. “People don’t understand that Weller was the go-to bourbon for people who were in the trenches of the bourbon community. It was an incredible bourbon, and it was loved in the bourbon community before Pappy was ‘Pappy.’”

“The story of what happened to Weller 12 is a great example of the bourbon ecosystem we have now,” says Riber. “Weller 12 was the reason bourbon was so popular — you could get something that was so delicious for so cheap. Compared to a 12-year Scotch, it was cheap for so long. But everything has kinda caught up.”

Weller 12 FAQ

How often is Weller 12 released? There isn’t a set release date for Weller 12 because it releases continuously throughout the year.

When is Weller 12 released? If you want to know specifically when Weller 12 might be available in your area, patronize a local liquor store and befriend the staff. They’ll know when shipments usually come in. Outside of that, you’ll have to rely on luck.

How to find Weller 12? This bourbon is extremely valuable now and so has become extremely difficult to find at reasonable prices. The best ways to find Weller 12: chatting with your local liquor store’s manager or going rogue into the whiskey black markets on Facebook and elsewhere. Know that buying and selling whiskey on Facebook (or anywhere if you’re not a licensed retailer) is illegal.

How much does Weller 12 cost? There isn’t one answer to this question. Its suggested retail price is around $40. As already stated, however, Weller 12’s average shelf price these days is seven or eight times that. This price is slightly higher than what you’d find on Facebook buy-sell-trade groups, but again, buying from there is against the law.