It shouldn’t be news that some highly sought-after bourbons are more readily available in the UK than they are in the US. The UK is the second-largest market for bourbon in the world, after the US, and there is enough demand to warrant plenty of interesting bottles arriving on shop shelves without always costing a fortune.
There are some caveats. The main one is that, at these prices, bottles can still sell out pretty quickly. However, with demand dropping from the craziness of the COVID years and secondary market prices falling, you can now walk into plenty of retailers across the UK and find these bottles sitting on shelves at or around RRP.
Blanton’s Single Barrel, Gold, & Straight From The Barrel, 46.5%+, £65+
This one should come as no surprise. All three releases, especially Single Barrel and Straight From The Barrel, are available through a number of online and brick-and-mortar retailers in the UK.
Demand for Blanton’s was crazy at one point. Bottles would barely remain on shelves for longer than a day at the peak of the hype. Luckily, that has changed, and inflated prices are gradually falling back toward actual RRP levels.
Whether or not you think the product is still worth it is purely down to personal opinion. There are some truly excellent Blanton’s releases, but with the wealth of newer and different brands now available, has Blanton’s lost some of its shine?
You can pick up quality single barrels from so many brands these days, but that unmistakable candied orange and caramel profile will always be what Blanton’s is known for.
My ultimate budget single barrel pick, if you can’t find Blanton’s, is Four Roses Single Barrel. I have sung the praises of this bottle more times than I can count. Pick one up. You won’t be disappointed.
W.L. Weller Antique 107, 53.5%, £45
This is very much a similar story. Once the general public and flippers realized that Weller was made from the same wheated bourbon recipe associated with Pappy Van Winkle, well, folks lost their minds.
Weller is an awesome wheated bourbon to drink at RRP. The secondary prices, however, made that almost impossible for a while. The same applies to Weller 12 Year Old, Full Proof, CYPB, and plenty of the other releases.
Thankfully, with the Buffalo Trace Distillery London shop and bar, and another location opening in Manchester, stocks of Weller in the UK have become much easier to find. Special Reserve is even appearing on supermarket shelves. Around two years ago, some retailers were asking £65 a bottle for it.
Long story short, it’s great liquid at a solid RRP, and luckily prices are falling back toward that level. Plenty of shops are also releasing special picks and paired offers for decent prices, normally including a bottle of Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight Bourbon as well.
Weller is all about those creamy milk chocolate and honey notes, with plenty of breakfast cereal character too. It’s quite a nostalgic-smelling and tasting bourbon.
If wheated bourbon is your thing, you can also jump into a host of other brands, including Maker’s Mark, Green River, and Larceny. There are plenty of directions you can go in.
Four Roses Small Batch Limited Edition, 54%+, £195+
Now to a different Four Roses bottle. Four Roses has always maintained something of a blue-collar feel. So many of its regular releases are readily available around the world, and when the distillery does release something rare, yes, it disappears quickly.
However, with auction prices falling, some of these bottles are now sitting on retailer shelves at RRP. That’s impressive in a lot of ways.
Four Roses is all butter and brown sugar, with little hints of spice running through it. The Small Batch Limited Editions take that profile and turn it up several notches. Think cherries covered in melted chocolate, buttery brioche, and minty, earthy spices lingering in the background.
Hedonism in Mayfair, London, has had a few different releases sitting on its shelves. Am I tempted? Absolutely. I’d love to experience a full bottle of this stuff over a year or two, but I’m currently behaving.
If you’re looking for something similar but different, brands such as Peerless, Driftless Glen, and New Riff have some incredible options that are well worth exploring.
Maker’s Mark Cellar Aged, 57%+, £145
I’ve written about this one before, and much of the same logic that applies to everything above also applies here.
These are the oldest bourbons Maker’s Mark has ever released, sealed in that familiar red wax but with miles of additional complexity built into them. The first two releases disappeared quickly, but that demand appears to be slowing down now.
These bottles have an excellent contrast of sweet cocoa, coffee, and honey notes, all wrapped up with slightly bitter and earthier flavors. It’s such a transformative style of bourbon that you can really feel it changing in the glass as you nurse it for a while.
Bourbons reaching the early double digits in age aren’t necessarily difficult to find, but finding them at cask strength is a little harder. You can easily jump to something like Eagle Rare 10 or 12 Year Old for a great, well-aged alternative, but you’ll struggle to match the power and complexity of Cellar Aged at cask strength.
It’s a fabulous bourbon and, at the price it is currently sitting at in the UK, gives you a full-bore wheated bourbon experience without having to chase one down on the secondary market.
Eagle Rare 10 Year Old, 45%, £45
Easily the most controversial one, mainly because it shouldn’t be as difficult to get in the US as it is.
It’s probably easier to find now, but at one point I sold more Eagle Rare 10 to Americans taking bottles back to the States than anyone else. In the UK, it can now be found on supermarket shelves for as little as £32 at times. Is that a good thing? Yes and no, but that’s an article for another day.
Eagle Rare 10 is something of a gold standard for double-digit-aged bourbon, and there’s a good reason why. It’s well made, well vatted, much loved, and tastes great.
Thankfully, at these prices, you can enjoy that delicious layered profile of maple, pecan, fresh pastry, cinnamon, and soft tobacco that Eagle Rare does so well.
There are hundreds of alternatives, including Elijah Craig, Evan Williams, and Bulleit. Take your pick, really. But there is something more defined about Eagle Rare, and one reason hype builds genuinely in the spirits world is that sometimes the liquid really is that good.
Anyone who has tried to track down certain Buffalo Trace products knows that all too well.
Why Bourbon Availability Changes Everything
Demand will always be the driving factor behind any whisky release, whether new or old. Even with brand-new distillery releases, you still get that huge initial rush of interest, and the majority of those buyers are drinkers who genuinely want to open and enjoy the bottle. A smaller percentage are there to flip it immediately. It’s their property, so they can do what they want with it.
However, with Scotch whisky still dominating the UK market, bourbon can sometimes fly a little under the radar when it comes to new launches and allocations.
There are still messages flying around Discord, Slack, and WhatsApp groups about which retailers have certain bottles and what they’re charging. But one of the biggest positives is seeing products such as Eagle Rare 10 Year Old and Weller Special Reserve filling supermarket shelves.
If bottles like those are readily available to the wider public, there is a good chance plenty more stock is making its way into specialist retailers as well.
Read the full article at 5 Bourbons That Are Easier To Find In The UK Than In The U.S.
