Willett is a Kentucky bourbon brand that has a long history in the whiskey business. It’s only in the past 3 years though that they starting distilling again and the results of that are available in their current 2 year small batch rye and the forthcoming 3 year small batch rye. Before those products, Willet was more well known for their Family Estate line of bourbon and rye which range in age anywhere from 28 years down to 3 years. All of the products in the Family Estate line are sourced whiskeys of mostly unknown provenance though you can find plenty of speculation on their sources littered all over the various whiskey blogs and forums.
My experience with the Willett Family Estate whiskeys through the years tasting 30 or so different bottles has been something like this: many exceptional, many great, mostly good, some just okay, and a couple bad. That’s a pretty good track record if prices are reasonable like when they first became available in my area around 3-4 years ago. These days though when prices are hovering around $10 or more per aged year, paying $100+ for a bottle that might just be okay or even bad isn’t a risk many will take especially given the murmuring that quality is on the decline. I personally still haven’t reached the breaking point yet so when I was at the distillery gift shop earlier this year I picked up this bottle as well as a 13 year that will be the subject of a future review.
Aged 12 Years; 62.9% ABV; Bottle #79 of 150; Barrel No. 837; $118
Nose: Pretty hot, even after I switched to a Canadian glencairn. After about 30 minutes of air time the heat dissipated enough to reveal caramel, lots of woodiness, tobacco, and leather.
Taste: Caramel and honey sweetness takes the forefront though it’s rather muted by a pretty hefty amount of oak. The finish has the tobacco and leather notes from the nose. The woodiness here is certainly the most dominant element and while I wouldn’t say it’s overly bitter I would say that the sweetness and oaky bitterness pretty much cancel each other out leaving behind not much else than heat. It’s rather bland to be honest which is confusing considering the proof and the age.
Thoughts: A disappointing showing for the Family Estate line. This bottle is almost empty and I’m not sad to see it go. It’s not the worst Willett I’ve had but it’s far from great and somewhere around “okay”. This is the risk you take when buying a single barrel bottle from a Non-Distiller-Producer bottling of unknown provenance.
Rating: B- / C+
Value: As always, I don’t factor cost into my ratings. I regret paying retail for this bottle and can’t recommend trading or buying this particular barrel on any secondary markets. Having said that, the other bottle that I picked up on this trip (13yr #392) is quite stellar so it’s hard to recommend avoiding all these middle aged Family Estate bottlings just yet.
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