Exploring the Best Bourbons of the Year: A PourMore Exclusive Review

Exploring the best bourbons of the year — what makes a bottle worth the pour

Every spirits publication puts out a "best bourbons of the year" list in November. Most of them read the same way: a ranked list of 20 bottles, half of which you can't actually find, the other half of which were picked because they were new and easy to review. That's a category problem, not a taste problem. The bottles that actually end up being the year's most interesting bourbons don't always land on a magazine list — and the ones that do are often gone before the ink's dry.

Rather than hand you another ranked list, here's a more useful version: the categories of bourbon worth hunting in this year, why each one matters, and what makes a bottle in that lane actually worth your money. This is how we think about the bottles we send. It's also a better map for anyone who wants to drink better on their own.

Allocated bourbons — the ones that don't reach the shelf

Allocated means the distillery didn't make enough to meet demand. That sounds like marketing speak until you actually try to buy one. Bottles like Weller, Stagg, Blanton's, and Michter's 10-Year technically exist — but walk into most liquor stores and you won't find them. What you'll find is the distiller's standard expressions, plus a shelf where the allocated bottles used to be.

Why bother chasing them? Because the reason these get allocated in the first place is usually that they drink well above their price tag. A bottle of Weller 12 at MSRP is one of the best values in American whiskey. A bottle at the inflated secondary price is something else entirely — and most drinkers shouldn't pay those numbers. The better play is to get access to allocated bottles at real pricing, which is part of what PourMore's Allocated Bottle Bundles are built to solve.

Single-barrel picks — every bottle is its own story

Single barrel means exactly what it sounds like: every bottle in the release came from one specific barrel. No blending between barrels, no averaging out the character. What you're pouring is that barrel — which means even within the same brand, two single-barrel bottles can taste noticeably different.

This is one of our favorite lanes to hunt in. Store-pick single barrels — where an independent retailer selects a barrel from a distillery and bottles it under that store's name — are often some of the best values in bourbon. They're rarely widely distributed. They usually drink bigger and more expressive than the brand's standard expression. And they're the kind of bottle that makes a real collector lean forward when it hits the table.

Cask strength and barrel proof — the reward pour

Cask strength — the bourbon went into the bottle at the proof it came out of the barrel, with no water added to bring it down. That's why most cask strength bottles clock in north of 120 proof, some well above 130. At that strength, the bourbon is dense, concentrated, and demands a slow pour.

This isn't a lane for every night. It's a lane for the bourbon you pour when you've got an hour and a good glass. Stagg Jr., Elijah Craig Barrel Proof, Wild Turkey Rare Breed, and Booker's are the well-known names. The less-known cask strength bottles — often from smaller distilleries — are where the real hunting happens. For more on why high-proof bourbons drink the way they do, the high-proof bourbon guide goes deeper.

Wheated bourbons — softer, rounder, easier to sip

Most bourbons use rye as their secondary grain after corn. Wheated bourbons swap that rye for wheat. That one change is why wheated bourbons drink softer, sweeter, and rounder than their rye-forward counterparts — there's less of the peppery, assertive note that rye brings, and more of the vanilla-and-caramel character that people associate with the corn-heavy side of bourbon.

Maker's Mark is the household name. Weller is the one enthusiasts chase. Larceny and Rebel Yell (now just Rebel) also fall in this lane. If the bourbon drinker you're thinking about tends to find the spicier stuff too assertive, a wheated bottle is almost always a smarter move than going bigger on proof. It's a style worth knowing — and one of the categories we hunt in consistently.

Small-batch releases — the opinionated middle ground

Small batch means a distillery blended bourbon from a limited number of barrels — more than one, fewer than the full standard batch. The actual number varies wildly by brand, but the idea is the same: a master distiller picked specific barrels that work well together and blended them to produce a particular flavor profile.

Knob Creek Small Batch, Four Roses Small Batch, and Basil Hayden's are all small-batch expressions from the bigger distilleries. Smaller producers often use the small-batch label too, and some of the most interesting bourbons we've sent in the last year have been small-batch releases from distilleries most drinkers have never heard of. This is the lane for someone who wants character without the proof intensity of cask strength.

Craft and regional distilleries — the ones quietly making the best new bourbon

The big four distilleries in Kentucky make most of the bourbon Americans actually drink. But a wave of smaller distilleries — in Texas, Indiana, Tennessee, and beyond — have been quietly putting out bottles that compete with the big names, and sometimes beat them. A bottle from a regional producer is rarely going to show up in the top five of a magazine list, but it's often the most interesting bottle on the shelf. For more on this lane, the craft bourbon guide covers what's actually happening outside Kentucky.

What we actually send — the kind of bottle that ends up in the box

We don't send the bottle you can buy at Total Wine. That's not a knock on Total Wine — it's just a different business. Our Explorer and Enthusiast tiers are built to send bottles that a typical retailer either can't get or doesn't stock, because the producer didn't make enough of it or because the allocation didn't cover a bigger chain.

Here's how it breaks down by tier.

Intro starts at $50/month. Solid, well-made bottles — the kind of bourbon that's worth drinking but that you could, in theory, find on your own if you had the time.

Explorer is where most members land and stay. Limited runs. Single-barrel picks. Store-pick bottles from small retailers. Bottles from smaller distilleries most people haven't heard of. Starting at $80/month. This is the tier that sends what we think are the best bourbons of the year, most months.

Enthusiast is the top tier. Allocated bottles and rare finds — the kind of bottle that would be the "best bourbon of the year" on half the magazine lists if it had shown up in enough stores to qualify. At $130/month, it's less common as a gift and more common as a self-subscription for drinkers who already know what they're chasing.

How we pick, in more detail than most clubs bother to share

Every bottle we send starts with a tasting. A team of people who do this for a living sit with the bottle, take notes, decide whether it's worth sending, and — if it is — figure out what's actually interesting about it. That last part is the one most subscription services skip. We write it up. Every bottle arrives with context: who made it, why this one, what to expect on the nose and palate, how to drink it, what it pairs with.

That's the difference between getting a bottle and getting a bottle you actually understand. The liquid matters. The context is what turns the liquid into an experience worth having.

Why "best of the year" lists miss what's actually interesting

A magazine list is a marketing exercise. It rewards bottles that were widely distributed enough to get reviewed and interesting enough to justify a paragraph. That leaves out most of what's actually good — the single-barrel picks a distillery only made 1,200 of, the regional producer who can't afford press outreach, the cask strength release that sold out before a reviewer got to it.

A hand-selected club picks up exactly that gap. The bottles we send aren't chosen because they'll look good in a headline. They're chosen because they're what we'd pour for ourselves. The difference shows up in the glass.

How to actually drink better bourbon this year

If you want to find the best bourbons of the year on your own, the honest answer is: it takes work. Build relationships with the buyers at your local shops. Know when allocations drop. Follow the smaller distilleries. Taste every new release you can get your hands on. Keep notes. After a couple of years of that, you'll have a decent map of what's actually happening in bourbon.

If you'd rather skip the work and just drink well, that's where a subscription comes in. The Bourbon-of-the-Month Club at Explorer level is designed to deliver exactly the kind of bottle this article keeps pointing at — single-barrel picks, smaller distillery releases, cask strength selections, and the occasional allocated surprise. The how it works page breaks down the tier differences in plain English, and the best bourbon brands guide is a useful primer for anyone building a baseline on their own.

The best bourbons of the year aren't a list. They're a moving target — allocations shift, distilleries release new expressions, small producers come online, store picks drop and sell out. The better play isn't to chase the list. It's to set up a reliable way to keep finding bottles that are worth your time. That's the whole idea.