My first Weller Full Proof turned into 8068 Roses (2017 * 4) but when I got a second one I couldn’t resist cracking it. My wife won this bottle at the Austin Shaker raffle this weekend while I snagged a Joseph Magnus Murray Hill Club Special Release Batch 2 (just to tag you in this post u/prepreludesh). I’d tasted Weller Full Proof a few times at Moonshine and quite liked it so I mostly knew what I was getting into with this bottle though drinking it out at a bar and sipping on it in my home office are very different experiences.
Weller Full Proof is this year’s line expansion to Buffalo Trace’s Weller brand. Last year we got CYPB and who knows what next year will bring? I am hoping for a finished Weller personally. The bottle and label are 10/10 tater bait between the deep blue, the gold foil over the cork and the back label laden with buzzwords. Admittedly I want to go grab a gold topped OWA now to match this guy. It’s bottled at 114, Weller entry proof, and is non chill filtered like so many great OWA picks. The only thing it is missing is an age statement. With all that going for it I knew it wouldn’t be bad but the question was is it really going to be better than OWA? Let’s find out!
Weller Full Proof
Age: NAS years
Abv: 114 proof
Price: $51.99
Neat
Nose: Sweet and subtler than I expected with butterscotch and vanilla notes.
Taste: Rich butterscotch, cherry, vanilla notes alongside fainter oak and warm spice notes. Great mouthfeel.
Finish: Long and spicier than I expected with lingering warm spice balanced by some vanilla and oak notes.
Conclusion
I really enjoyed this. Honestly it tasted like a midrange NCF OWA pick (better than say this year’s Texas sticker bottles but not as good as top tier picks like Big Chief or Nickel City’s last pick) which is a good place to be if you ask me. I’ve tasted this blind and non-blind against regular OWA and picked it both times. It has less cherry than OWA for me but more of everything else and a much improved mouthfeel.
Is this worth the hype? No, not at all. Would I hunt this down or pay secondary? Also no. If I saw this on the shelf for $50-75 or so would I buy it? Definitely yes. I drink a lot of OWA, especially picks, so it’s not surprising that this bourbon appealed to me. If you aren’t a fan of wheaters in general or Weller in specific I doubt this will be the bottle to win you over.
TL;DR: Excellent bourbon, definitely overhyped right now, OWA++
8 - an excellent bottle I’d like to have at home
Great - A great deal, I’d buy it again
I have at least one barrel pick of this coming in as well so I’m looking forward to blinding this against a pick or two to see how the single barrels stack up.
Scale
Scale
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