May 1, 2025 • 11 mins
This week on Aussie Bourbon Lovers, we’re pouring the iconic Weller 12 Year — Buffalo Trace’s beloved weeded bourbon that’s either overhyped or underrated, depending on who you ask.
We discuss:
-
🌾 H’s farmer roots and what “harvest” smells like in a glass
-
🧃 Apple juice nostalgia and brown sugar sweetness
-
🍮 A bourbon that’s undeniably “desserty”
-
💬 The hype vs. the reality of tracking down Weller 12
-
📚 A nod to William LaRue Weller and the BTAC legacy
Smooth, sweet, screw-capped — and one we clearly enjoyed, based on how empty the bottle is.
🟠 Keywords: Weller 12, Weller 12 Year, Buffalo Trace, weeded bourbon, William LaRue Weller, bourbon podcast, Aussie bourbon, dessert bourbon, bourbon review
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Weller 12 Year Old Bourbon 02:49 Exploring the Flavour Profile of Weller 12 year 06:12 The Legacy of William Weller, or what we know of it 09:04 Comparing Weller Variants and Availability, but we might be wrong
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Incredible flavours, even better stories.
(00:05):
One Pour, 10 Minuts.
Aussie bourbon lovers, sharingbourbon with Australia.
Oh, no pop tonight.
It's a screw cup.Sorry.
It's so anticlimate.
One of the amazing things is that someof the really nice whiskies do
(00:27):
have a screw cap instead of a cork.
But you know what a goodthing about a screw cap is?
Screw caps never dry out.That's true.
And corks sometimes do.What are we having, H?
We're having a Weller 12-year-old,an original weeded bourbon.
All right.Cheers.
It makes such a good ting, doesn't it?
The It does.The Glencarein glass.
(00:47):
Yeah.Black labour weller.
This is almost...It's not quite a bottle kill.
We still got, I reckon,one more go in that day.
This classic thing thatI'm going to get...
They're going to tease me again aboutthis thing about the-Oh, you'll be right.
The bottle's mostly emptywhen we take the picture.
Yeah, but that's okay.
It means we actually enjoy drinkingwhat we're talking about and not like…
(01:08):
Ain't that the truth?Yes.
All right, come on then.
What are you getting on the nose?A bit of harvest.
Really?
A bit of harvest.
This is where any time something wheatedcomes up, H's heritage as a
daughter of a wheat farmer comes through.
If I close my eyes,not that I've drunk bourbon on the
(01:29):
tractor, but I'm stepping out of thetractor when they've just freshly cut
some of the harvest.
Yeah, I don't know.I'm probably not.
But also very caramely.
I'm getting apple juice.
You know pressure fruit?
You know the sweet?Do you remember this?
(01:49):
It's like a triangular bottleof clear apple juice.
Yes.I used to love that.
Yes.You're getting that.
Just the sweet, like reallysweet, yummy sweetness.
Which I think is that.I've gone from harvest to really caramely.
Yeah, and then that toffy, brown sugary.Desserty.
This has definitely gota desserty vibe going.
(02:11):
How about the taste, Dave?
Does the taste have thesame vibe as the nose?
Yeah, I forgot how much I like this.This is so good.
Judging on how much the bottle isgone, we clearly like this one.
Well, it's one of these bottles thatfor a while there it was quite...
I might be wrong about this, but I feltlike for a while it was
hard to get in Australia.There's a lot of stuff in there.
And then I got a...I'm wrong about stuff all the time.
(02:33):
It was hard to get.
And then we bought a bottle andwe went, wow, that's really tasty.
And there's people, so well, another oneof these Buffalo trash products
that's hard to get in the US.
So people talk about how good would well a12-year-old is, and a lot of people go,
Oh, I got it, and I had it, and I wasdisappointed by the fact that it
wasn't as good as I was expecting.
(02:53):
Well, it's that thing of if you hypesomething up too much,
sometimes it disappoints.
But this is delicious, deliciouson the nose and delicious to taste.
You're right.
What can you tell me aboutWilliam Weller, Dave?
William LaRue-Weller?Yeah.
I'm pretty sure that's his name.
That's the one that's in that antiquecollection, William LaRue-weller.
That's a pretty cool name.What can I tell you about him?
(03:15):
I don't know.Well, he was born in 1825.
You want me to read offthe back of the label?
I don't know who William Leroy Weller was.
You're asking me as though I'm going tojust be able to wheel out
some fact about this fellow.You're always full of information.
I enjoy drinking this one.
I walked in the door about 10 minutes agofrom a late night at work, and you're
expecting me to have researched this?
Well, here, he was one ofthe early whiskey pioneers.
The other week, you did all your research.
(03:37):
You showed me up so bad.
That's because you were putting the kidsto bed and I could Google it,
but I haven't had any chance.
I literally walked in thekids already fast asleep.
I'm Creepers.
It's fair to say this is a tribute of aman who made We Did
Bourbon, Burbon legendary.
He must have been theguy who pioneered it.
Anyway, if you've got a bottle of it,you can read the back of it yourself.
Yes.We'll Google it.
Exactly.
But here's the thing that I knowyou like to bang on about Welles.
(04:00):
Go on.I'll let you go for it.
No.Yeah, you're going to be able to do it.
I don't know what you're talking about.Yeah, you do.
What is Weller?
Is this the one that's friendswith Buffalo Trace people?
What do you mean?Is this the- They make it a Buffalo Trace.
They make it a Buffalo Trace, and theBuffalo Trace is very famous for
(04:20):
their Pappie, which is very expensive.Okay.
Correct me if I'm wrong.No, you're right.
But Buffalo Trace is its own thing,and Pappie Van It's all its own thing.
They just both made at thesame distillery and owned by.
Yes.Sounds right?
Yes.They also make Blantons there.
A lot of great bourbon comes out of there.
But to be a Pappie,it goes through a very gruelling process
(04:44):
of I think it's a panel of 16 people.
It's a large number of people.
I love how much this storychanges each time, but good.
Yeah, you go.
Anyway, it's a large number ofpeople, and they all have to taste it.
It's got to be unanimous that it's thequality that it needs to be to be a pappy.
If you have a of complaint about how canwe tell this story, you
can send it to Helen.
I know I've told it a few times.Aussie Bourbon Lovers.
(05:05):
It's a great story.
I'm fascinated that 16 or 12 or whateverit is, maybe it's eight, who knows?
I'll have to look it up.
But that a group of people sit around,taste the bourbon out of the barrel,
and if all of them agree,it then becomes a very expensive
pappie, and you are very hard to get.
(05:26):
But if one or two of those people don'tagree, it becomes a much more affordable,
very delicious, weller.Great.
There you go.Well done.
I'm glad we got there.
Here's another one that you're definitelygoing to be able to help us with.
I wasn't going to repeat the story.No, you did well.
You insisted.
It's a weller.It's the black label.
(05:48):
It says, Age 12 years.
How old is the oldestbourbon in this bottle?
I don't know.
It could be really old, butthe youngest is 12 years.
See?I know my facts, too, Dave.
Yeah.
I reckon you couldIt's not just you that knows everything.
Okay.All right.
But yes, they have to put the age they puton the bottle is the age of
the youngest bourbon in there.
(06:09):
So even though this is 12 years old, whichis a great age for bourbon,
it is the youngest bourbon in there.
So the oldest could be 28,could be 15, could be who knows.
Can I talk about something that for mefeels a little bit like
dishonest when I talk about the flavoursI get when I know it's a bourbon?
(06:29):
Because Because what I want tosay- You feel like an imposter?
Because I've just been sitting here justnosing this, and it's good fun to nose
this one because it smells so delicious.
Do you know what it smells like?
I just said- A really nice bourbon.
It smells like a really nice bourbon.
But when you nose it, it doesn't make anysense for us to say the notes I'm
getting are a really nice bourbon.
It doesn't make any sense.
(06:50):
And if you say I'm gettingcinnamon and toffee.
For some people, it probably makes moresense than if we sit here and say, Oh,
it's caramel and cinnamon and toffy.
They're like, I don't get any of that.
They just notice it and go, oh,that one's like a good bourbon.
Those really chewy...
What were they called?
Are they Caramel Chocolates?Those lollies?
(07:11):
Grandma used to give them to me.They have really...
Yeah, you've Caramel?
Chilly caramel on the outside andthat chewy chocolate in the middle?
Yeah.Have I said that before?
Well, maybe not.
But I think they weren'teven really expensive.
But bourbon experience a bit.Do they?
Caramel lollies?Or grandma lollies?
Grandma's lollies.
I'm sorry about that.
But it does.
Sometimes the nose is really good and thetaste doesn't match, and sometimes
(07:37):
it's the other way around.
You nose it and you'relike, Oh, not great.
But then you taste it and it's delicious.
This, I will declare,is one that is equal.
You nose it and you're like, This is goingto be delicious bourbon, and then you
drink it and it's delicious bourbon.
Do you know why I opened this one tonight?Why did you open this one tonight?
Can you remember?I told you this last week, I think.
We've been having one of our loyal YouTubefans, or maybe he's not that loyal,
(08:00):
but he's just come around recently.His name's Tim.
He's been posting a lot of comments on ourYouTube stuff, and I've been
really enjoying engaging with it.
Well, you asked aboutif we've done any weather episodes, and so
I pointed him to thespecial reserve when we did.
And I was like, Well, we haven'tdone the 12-year-old one yet.
So I thought, Well, let's crack it open.No.
Well, we got to do it while there'sstill some left in the bottle.
Well, yeah, of course.
But I also thought, Well, hey,I don't mind doing a request.
(08:22):
So if you got a request for an episode,bang a comment on YouTube
or in the podcasting.We'll do one.
We'll open a bottle.Also, get it from someone.
We don't have it on our shelf already.
What a good excuse to buy bourbon.
You want to see an episode?Just tell us what you want.
I want to hear about this one.Get our review.
This one, definitely recommend.
Can we get this in Australia?
Okay, good one.So you can.
I reckon I've seen it every now and again.
(08:43):
So I made at Celebrations Ballhas got some on his shelf right now.
I've seen that.And he can.
He's got a good range ofBuffalo Trace stuff.
So I think you probably often have it.
If it's available inAustralia, he'll often have it.
But online, you can definitely get it.
I reckon somewhere between 220 andor something a bottle.
So it's not cheap.
No, but it's not the thousandsof dollars you pay for a puffy.
(09:05):
Oh, great.No, it's definitely not.
Yeah, it's not like you're notbuying a 60-year bottle of bourbon.
You're buying a nicely priced bourbon, butyou're not spending
thousands of dollars on it, and you'regetting something that's
really good quality.
And you might find it at a Whisky-y dance.
If you're in Victoria, that'sbright, and there's a few others.
Butyeah, the one that
(09:29):
the special reserve, the green labelone, that's really easy to get it.
A lot of everywhere thing is nowherenear as good as this in my view.
What's the difference between the greenlabel and the black label we're drinking?
Well, I call that specialreserve, the green label.
There's no age statement on it.
We're going to say that'sa minimum of two years.
Two years, yeah.But maybe it's four years, say.
It could be six.I don't know.
(09:50):
I'm making it up.
But then this one's like, I think in theseries, the next one, and there's
the Antec 107, which I don'tactually know what that is.
And then there's that white label one,which is the youngest bourbon in here
that's 12 years is what makes this one,particularly one of our favourites.
Yes, I think so.
And then there's the white one,which is C-Y-Y-P-P-B or whatever.
(10:14):
I had it once, I think when I was in theStates, and it's Craft your own bourbon.
Something like that is what it stands for.It's a white label.
And the idea was that they took avote on what they wanted in a flavour.
I think they asked it.I think this is right.
Yeah.I love when they do fun stuff.
And they made this flavour profile.
But a lot of people werelike, Well, I didn't craft it.
(10:36):
So I don't know if you're.
Anyway, that's some of the were lined up.There's other ones, too, I think.
And there's also WilliamLerouh, which is in the antique.
Yeah.
I think this is a go-gowith some chocolate, too.
Okay.Well, let's go get some chocolate.
Cheers.Cheers.
Thanks for listening.
Make sure you're connected with us onTikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, and stay
(10:58):
connected with us by clicking subscribeon your favourite podcast app.
Incredible flavours, even better stories.
(00:05):
One Pour, 10 Minuts.
Aussie bourbon lovers, sharingbourbon with Australia.
Oh, no pop tonight.
It's a screw cup.Sorry.
It's so anticlimate.
One of the amazing things is that someof the really nice whiskies do
(00:27):
have a screw cap instead of a cork.
But you know what a goodthing about a screw cap is?
Screw caps never dry out.That's true.
And corks sometimes do.What are we having, H?
We're having a Weller 12-year-old,an original weeded bourbon.
All right.Cheers.
It makes such a good ting, doesn't it?
The It does.The Glencarein glass.
(00:47):
Yeah.Black labour weller.
This is almost...It's not quite a bottle kill.
We still got, I reckon,one more go in that day.
This classic thing thatI'm going to get...
They're going to tease me again aboutthis thing about the-Oh, you'll be right.
The bottle's mostly emptywhen we take the picture.
Yeah, but that's okay.
It means we actually enjoy drinkingwhat we're talking about and not like…
(01:08):
Ain't that the truth?Yes.
All right, come on then.
What are you getting on the nose?A bit of harvest.
Really?
A bit of harvest.
This is where any time something wheatedcomes up, H's heritage as a
daughter of a wheat farmer comes through.
If I close my eyes,not that I've drunk bourbon on the
(01:29):
tractor, but I'm stepping out of thetractor when they've just freshly cut
some of the harvest.
Yeah, I don't know.I'm probably not.
But also very caramely.
I'm getting apple juice.
You know pressure fruit?
You know the sweet?Do you remember this?
(01:49):
It's like a triangular bottleof clear apple juice.
Yes.I used to love that.
Yes.You're getting that.
Just the sweet, like reallysweet, yummy sweetness.
Which I think is that.I've gone from harvest to really caramely.
Yeah, and then that toffy, brown sugary.Desserty.
This has definitely gota desserty vibe going.
(02:11):
How about the taste, Dave?
Does the taste have thesame vibe as the nose?
Yeah, I forgot how much I like this.This is so good.
Judging on how much the bottle isgone, we clearly like this one.
Well, it's one of these bottles thatfor a while there it was quite...
I might be wrong about this, but I feltlike for a while it was
hard to get in Australia.There's a lot of stuff in there.
And then I got a...I'm wrong about stuff all the time.
(02:33):
It was hard to get.
And then we bought a bottle andwe went, wow, that's really tasty.
And there's people, so well, another oneof these Buffalo trash products
that's hard to get in the US.
So people talk about how good would well a12-year-old is, and a lot of people go,
Oh, I got it, and I had it, and I wasdisappointed by the fact that it
wasn't as good as I was expecting.
(02:53):
Well, it's that thing of if you hypesomething up too much,
sometimes it disappoints.
But this is delicious, deliciouson the nose and delicious to taste.
You're right.
What can you tell me aboutWilliam Weller, Dave?
William LaRue-Weller?Yeah.
I'm pretty sure that's his name.
That's the one that's in that antiquecollection, William LaRue-weller.
That's a pretty cool name.What can I tell you about him?
(03:15):
I don't know.Well, he was born in 1825.
You want me to read offthe back of the label?
I don't know who William Leroy Weller was.
You're asking me as though I'm going tojust be able to wheel out
some fact about this fellow.You're always full of information.
I enjoy drinking this one.
I walked in the door about 10 minutes agofrom a late night at work, and you're
expecting me to have researched this?
Well, here, he was one ofthe early whiskey pioneers.
The other week, you did all your research.
(03:37):
You showed me up so bad.
That's because you were putting the kidsto bed and I could Google it,
but I haven't had any chance.
I literally walked in thekids already fast asleep.
I'm Creepers.
It's fair to say this is a tribute of aman who made We Did
Bourbon, Burbon legendary.
He must have been theguy who pioneered it.
Anyway, if you've got a bottle of it,you can read the back of it yourself.
Yes.We'll Google it.
Exactly.
But here's the thing that I knowyou like to bang on about Welles.
(04:00):
Go on.I'll let you go for it.
No.Yeah, you're going to be able to do it.
I don't know what you're talking about.Yeah, you do.
What is Weller?
Is this the one that's friendswith Buffalo Trace people?
What do you mean?Is this the- They make it a Buffalo Trace.
They make it a Buffalo Trace, and theBuffalo Trace is very famous for
(04:20):
their Pappie, which is very expensive.Okay.
Correct me if I'm wrong.No, you're right.
But Buffalo Trace is its own thing,and Pappie Van It's all its own thing.
They just both made at thesame distillery and owned by.
Yes.Sounds right?
Yes.They also make Blantons there.
A lot of great bourbon comes out of there.
But to be a Pappie,it goes through a very gruelling process
(04:44):
of I think it's a panel of 16 people.
It's a large number of people.
I love how much this storychanges each time, but good.
Yeah, you go.
Anyway, it's a large number ofpeople, and they all have to taste it.
It's got to be unanimous that it's thequality that it needs to be to be a pappy.
If you have a of complaint about how canwe tell this story, you
can send it to Helen.
I know I've told it a few times.Aussie Bourbon Lovers.
(05:05):
It's a great story.
I'm fascinated that 16 or 12 or whateverit is, maybe it's eight, who knows?
I'll have to look it up.
But that a group of people sit around,taste the bourbon out of the barrel,
and if all of them agree,it then becomes a very expensive
pappie, and you are very hard to get.
(05:26):
But if one or two of those people don'tagree, it becomes a much more affordable,
very delicious, weller.Great.
There you go.Well done.
I'm glad we got there.
Here's another one that you're definitelygoing to be able to help us with.
I wasn't going to repeat the story.No, you did well.
You insisted.
It's a weller.It's the black label.
(05:48):
It says, Age 12 years.
How old is the oldestbourbon in this bottle?
I don't know.
It could be really old, butthe youngest is 12 years.
See?I know my facts, too, Dave.
Yeah.
I reckon you couldIt's not just you that knows everything.
Okay.All right.
But yes, they have to put the age they puton the bottle is the age of
the youngest bourbon in there.
(06:09):
So even though this is 12 years old, whichis a great age for bourbon,
it is the youngest bourbon in there.
So the oldest could be 28,could be 15, could be who knows.
Can I talk about something that for mefeels a little bit like
dishonest when I talk about the flavoursI get when I know it's a bourbon?
(06:29):
Because Because what I want tosay- You feel like an imposter?
Because I've just been sitting here justnosing this, and it's good fun to nose
this one because it smells so delicious.
Do you know what it smells like?
I just said- A really nice bourbon.
It smells like a really nice bourbon.
But when you nose it, it doesn't make anysense for us to say the notes I'm
getting are a really nice bourbon.
It doesn't make any sense.
(06:50):
And if you say I'm gettingcinnamon and toffee.
For some people, it probably makes moresense than if we sit here and say, Oh,
it's caramel and cinnamon and toffy.
They're like, I don't get any of that.
They just notice it and go, oh,that one's like a good bourbon.
Those really chewy...
What were they called?
Are they Caramel Chocolates?Those lollies?
(07:11):
Grandma used to give them to me.They have really...
Yeah, you've Caramel?
Chilly caramel on the outside andthat chewy chocolate in the middle?
Yeah.Have I said that before?
Well, maybe not.
But I think they weren'teven really expensive.
But bourbon experience a bit.Do they?
Caramel lollies?Or grandma lollies?
Grandma's lollies.
I'm sorry about that.
But it does.
Sometimes the nose is really good and thetaste doesn't match, and sometimes
(07:37):
it's the other way around.
You nose it and you'relike, Oh, not great.
But then you taste it and it's delicious.
This, I will declare,is one that is equal.
You nose it and you're like, This is goingto be delicious bourbon, and then you
drink it and it's delicious bourbon.
Do you know why I opened this one tonight?Why did you open this one tonight?
Can you remember?I told you this last week, I think.
We've been having one of our loyal YouTubefans, or maybe he's not that loyal,
(08:00):
but he's just come around recently.His name's Tim.
He's been posting a lot of comments on ourYouTube stuff, and I've been
really enjoying engaging with it.
Well, you asked aboutif we've done any weather episodes, and so
I pointed him to thespecial reserve when we did.
And I was like, Well, we haven'tdone the 12-year-old one yet.
So I thought, Well, let's crack it open.No.
Well, we got to do it while there'sstill some left in the bottle.
Well, yeah, of course.
But I also thought, Well, hey,I don't mind doing a request.
(08:22):
So if you got a request for an episode,bang a comment on YouTube
or in the podcasting.We'll do one.
We'll open a bottle.Also, get it from someone.
We don't have it on our shelf already.
What a good excuse to buy bourbon.
You want to see an episode?Just tell us what you want.
I want to hear about this one.Get our review.
This one, definitely recommend.
Can we get this in Australia?
Okay, good one.So you can.
I reckon I've seen it every now and again.
(08:43):
So I made at Celebrations Ballhas got some on his shelf right now.
I've seen that.And he can.
He's got a good range ofBuffalo Trace stuff.
So I think you probably often have it.
If it's available inAustralia, he'll often have it.
But online, you can definitely get it.
I reckon somewhere between 220 andor something a bottle.
So it's not cheap.
No, but it's not the thousandsof dollars you pay for a puffy.
(09:05):
Oh, great.No, it's definitely not.
Yeah, it's not like you're notbuying a 60-year bottle of bourbon.
You're buying a nicely priced bourbon, butyou're not spending
thousands of dollars on it, and you'regetting something that's
really good quality.
And you might find it at a Whisky-y dance.
If you're in Victoria, that'sbright, and there's a few others.
Butyeah, the one that
(09:29):
the special reserve, the green labelone, that's really easy to get it.
A lot of everywhere thing is nowherenear as good as this in my view.
What's the difference between the greenlabel and the black label we're drinking?
Well, I call that specialreserve, the green label.
There's no age statement on it.
We're going to say that'sa minimum of two years.
Two years, yeah.But maybe it's four years, say.
It could be six.I don't know.
(09:50):
I'm making it up.
But then this one's like, I think in theseries, the next one, and there's
the Antec 107, which I don'tactually know what that is.
And then there's that white label one,which is the youngest bourbon in here
that's 12 years is what makes this one,particularly one of our favourites.
Yes, I think so.
And then there's the white one,which is C-Y-Y-P-P-B or whatever.
(10:14):
I had it once, I think when I was in theStates, and it's Craft your own bourbon.
Something like that is what it stands for.It's a white label.
And the idea was that they took avote on what they wanted in a flavour.
I think they asked it.I think this is right.
Yeah.I love when they do fun stuff.
And they made this flavour profile.
But a lot of people werelike, Well, I didn't craft it.
(10:36):
So I don't know if you're.
Anyway, that's some of the were lined up.There's other ones, too, I think.
And there's also WilliamLerouh, which is in the antique.
Yeah.
I think this is a go-gowith some chocolate, too.
Okay.Well, let's go get some chocolate.
Cheers.Cheers.
Thanks for listening.
Make sure you're connected with us onTikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, and stay
(10:58):
connected with us by clicking subscribeon your favourite podcast app.
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