We’ve already covered the best bottles of bourbon under $50 to give as a gift. Now, we’re getting to the higher-end bottles that might not quite be collectible bottles (those cost a fair amount more) but will still put a smile on any whiskey lover’s face this holiday season.
Below, we’re calling out some of our favorite bottles of bourbon whiskey that cost less than $100 that we also think make great gifts. These bottles are generally easy to find (or available via delivery) and are unique enough to stand out from other gifts. While many of them are from well-known brands, we tried to pick some rarer or smaller releases from those brands.
If any of these bourbons sounds like a bottle someone in your life might dig this holiday season, click on the prices to see if they’re available in your region.
Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Bourbon Posts Of 2021
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- The Best Bottles Of Bourbon Whiskey For Under $20, Ranked
- Our Favorite Bourbon Whiskey From Every Price Point Between $10-$200
- All 19 Brands From The Buffalo Trace Distillery, Ranked
Nashville Barrel Co. Single Barrel Bourbon #427 117.88 Proof Selected by Single Malt Daily
ABV: 58.94%
Average Price: $89
The Whiskey:
Nashville Barrel Company is offering some of the most unique single barrel offerings in the game right now. The juice from Indiana is carefully selected by an industry professional — in this case UPROXX friend, Bevridge co-founder, and Single Malt Daily founder Nate Gana.
Gana chose a five-year-old bourbon and bottled it with NBC at cask strength with zero cutting or filtering. Only 198 bottles made it to shelves.
Tasting Notes:
The bourbon opens with a rush of classic bourbon notes with woody spice, dark caramel, corn husks, and a slight tropical fruit vibe that leans towards bananas and dried coconut. The palate toasts that coconut as rich vanilla and buttery toffee leads towards a holiday spice mix with dry nuts (more walnut than pecan) and a whisper of bitter black tea. The mid-palate sweetens with the fruit and toffee before leading back to a spicy dark chocolate tobacco dry leaf, leaving you warmed to the core.
Bottom Line:
This is a great one-off bottle for MGP hounds looking for unique single barrel bottlings. As of this writing, there were only 40 or so bottles left for sale, so you’ll want to hurry if you want to stuff one of these in a stocking this year.
Woodinville Bourbon Cask Strength
ABV: 59.72%
Average Price: $70
The Whiskey:
This is Woodinville’s award-winning bourbon with no proofing at all. The juice is a grain-to-glass experience with locally grown Washington grains (corn, rye, and barley), matured in Washington state for around five years. After those five years, barrels are hand-selected for their precise flavor and are small-batched and bottled as is.
Tasting Notes:
Dried cherries and plums mingle with a hint of tobacco spice, soft cedar, vanilla husks, and cornmeal on the nose. The body of the sip leans into almost burnt toffee sweetness and bitterness that leads towards dark chocolate-covered almonds with a touch of salt with more of that spicy tobacco and a hint more of fruit. The end is long and touches on the soft wood, tobacco, nuttiness, bitter chocolate, and a hint of sweet/savory fruit (kind of like honey-roasted pumpkin).
Bottom Line:
Woodinville puts out so many great expressions that it’s hard picking just one. Their Cask Strength is one of the more unique versions of their bourbon and really hits on the beautiful flavor profile that makes the juice from just outside of Seattle shine.
Four Roses Small Batch Select
ABV: 52%
Average Price: $64
The Whiskey:
This expression uses six of Four Rose’s ten whiskeys in their small-batching process. The idea is to blend both high and low-rye bourbons with yeast strains that highlight “delicate fruit,” “slight spice,” and “herbal notes.” The whiskeys tend to spend at least six years in the barrel before blending and proofing with just a touch of Kentucky’s soft limestone water.
Tasting Notes:
Raspberry and cloves mix with old oak on the nose and boy, does it draw you in. The palate amps up the dark berry sweetness with a bit of tartness, as a stone fruit vibe comes into play. The spice heightens and leans more Christmas spice with a focus on nutmeg. Finally, a wisp of fresh mint arrives to counterpoint the whole sip as the oak, vanilla, fruit, and spice all slowly fade out.
Bottom Line:
Four Roses Small Batch Select is a great bottle of bourbon that also has a very cool bottle. The presentation alone makes this feel like a solid gift bourbon. The beautiful whiskey inside is the cherry on top.
Wilderness Trail Wheated Bourbon Aged 6 Years
ABV: 50%
Average Price: $98
The Whiskey:
The team over at Wilderness Trail continues to wow with last year’s 6-year-old Wheated Bourbon release. The juice is a mash bill of 64 percent corn, 24 percent wheat, and 12 percent malted barley and uses co-founder Dr. Pat’s (yes, he’s a real doctor) proprietary yeast. The juice is then aged in their main warehouse where it’s moved to a new floor every one of those six years, allowing a little extra magic to happen in the barrel.
Tasting Notes:
The nose draws you in with a cinnamon-heavy pecan pie with a lard-hewn crust next to hints of wet pine. The palate leans into the corn syrup of the pecan pie while the cinnamon draws you towards an apple tobacco chew with a touch of caramel and vanilla lurking in the background. The finish doesn’t overstay its welcome and holds onto the cinnamon and pie vibes, ending on a fruity tobacco buzz.
Bottom Line:
This could be any bottle of Wilderness Trail. It’s a great gift bottle for any whiskey drinker who wants to really lean into the nerdy side of the craft.
Peerless Single Barrel Bourbon
ABV: 55.55% (varies)
Average Price: $86
The Whiskey:
Kentucky Peerless Distilling takes its time for a true grain-to-glass experience. Their Single Barrel Bourbon is crafted with a fairly low-rye mash bill and fermented with a sweet mash as opposed to a sour mash (that means they use 100 percent new grains, water, and yeast with each new batch instead of holding some of the mash over to start the next one like a sourdough starter, hence the name). The barrels are then hand-selected for their taste and bottled completely un-messed with.
Tasting Notes:
Naturally, this will vary ever so slightly, but expect notes of blackberry next to worn leather, rich toffee, vanilla oils, and wet tobacco leaves. The taste holds onto the toffee and vanilla as the tobacco dries out and spices up, with touches of cedar bark and a few bitter espresso beans. The end is long, holds onto the vanilla and tobacco, and touches back on the berries as it fades through your senses.
Bottom Line:
Sticking with crafty bourbon, this is one of the absolute best bourbons from a small and independent distillery. The bourbon is stellar and the bottle is bespoke, sending its potential as a gift sky high.
Maker’s Mark Cask Strength Bourbon Whisky
ABV: Varies
Average Price: $70
The Whisky:
This wheated bourbon is a small-batch masterpiece. The juice is a blend of up to 19 barrels from the Maker’s warehouses. The whiskies are hand-selected according to distinct flavor characteristics to build a masterful end product. Once the whisky is married, it goes into the bottle at cask strength, unfiltered, and ready to drink.
Tasting Notes:
There’s a clear sense of bourbon vanilla on the nose with touches of burnt caramel, charred oak, and a hint of dry bales of straw. The taste brings about a spicy tobacco chewiness that’s cut with more vanilla and hints of dried apricot. The end is slow, leaves your tongue buzzing with tobacco and spice, and has a mellow vanilla roundness.
Bottom Line:
It’s likely most bourbon drinkers know Maker’s Mark. This expression is the purest form of Maker’s and always shines. Plus, these will vary slightly every year, meaning that you could give one of these every year and have something worth drinking and collecting.
Jefferson’s Ocean Aged At Sea Cask Strength
ABV: 59.8%
Average Price: $84
The Whiskey:
Jefferson’s Ocean is an experiment in finishing that’s pretty unique. The blenders pull in six to eight-year-old whiskeys sourced from four Kentucky distilleries. They marry those barrels and then re-barrel the whiskey, load them onto a ship, and sail those barrels around the world for almost a year. The best of those barrels are married and bottled at cask strength with no additional fussing.
Tasting Notes:
There’s a clear crème brûlée vibe on the nose with touches of orange zest, cinnamon toast, slightly singed marshmallow. The taste dives into salted caramel notes with hints of Almond Joys covered in dark chocolate next to a savory fruit edge. That fruit turns figgy as the end fades slowly, hitting on spicy tobacco warmth and a final touch of fresh mint.
Bottom Line:
There really isn’t another whiskey out there like this one. It’s truly unique in its aging process and really does deliver a highly drinkable and beautiful whiskey. This is another one that slightly changes year by year, which amps up its cool factor as a gift.
Belle Meade Reserve Bourbon
ABV: 54.15%
Average Price: $66
The Whiskey:
Belle Meade, the blending arm of Nashville’s Nelson Green Brier, sources some of the best barrels for their expressions. This whiskey is a hand-selected, marrying of high-rye (30 percent) seven to eleven-year-old bourbons that are bottled at nearly barrel strength (it’s just touched with water when needed) and allowing the juice in the barrel to speak for itself.
Tasting Notes:
Cornmeal that’s been spiked with stewed and spicy peaches, caramel, soft wood, and vanilla greet you. The sip really leans into the classic bourbon vibes on the palate with an apple pie with plenty of cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg inside a buttery crust with hints of cedar, library leather, and tobacco chew. Hints of raisins and walnuts arrive late in that apple pie as the sip slowly fades, leaving you warmed and wanting more.
Bottom Line:
This is just a damn fine whiskey that feels special in every way. You cannot go wrong wrapping up one of these bottles this year.
Wild Turkey Kentucky Spirit Single Barrel
ABV: 50.5%
Average Price: $60
The Whiskey:
Jimmy Russell hand selects eight to nine-year-old barrels from his warehouses for their individual taste and quality. Those barrels are then cut down ever-so-slightly to 101 proof and bottled with their barrel number and warehouse location.
Tasting Notes:
There’s a roundness to this sip that’s enticing. The nose is a classic mix of bold vanilla, baking spice, oak, and fruity sweetness. That fruit edges towards dark berries with notes of worn leather, aged oakiness, and a sweet and rose-water-forward marzipan nuttiness shining through. The end lasts a while on your palate and in your senses, leaving you warmed up and wanting more.
Bottom Line:
Again, most whiskey drinkers have heard of Wild Turkey but a lot fewer have had a chance to try this single barrel release from the brand. This is slowly becoming one of our favorite Wild Turkey releases and would be a welcome gift under any tree.
Remus Repeal Reserve Series V Straight Bourbon
ABV: 50%
Average Price: $94
The Whiskey:
This year’s Remus Repeal Reserve V is a hell of a whiskey. The MGP of Indiana (now Ross & Squibb) signature bourbon is comprised of nine percent 2005 bourbon with a 21 percent high-rye mash, five percent 2006 bourbon with a very high-rye mash of 36 percent of the sticky grain, 19 percent 2006 bourbon with the same 21 percent high-rye mash, 13 percent 2008 bourbon with that 21 percent rye mash, and 54 percent 2008 bourbon with the 36 percent high-rye mash.
Tasting Notes:
The nose on this is brilliantly fruity with touches of fresh raspberries, strawberries resting in dry straw, candied cherries, freshly peeled mandarins, apple cores and stems, and a touch of caramel malts. That caramel sweetness merges into a fresh honeycomb next to Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda vanilla flavor and pep while the fruit dries out, leaving you with meaty dried figs, dates, and prunes driving the midpalate toward the finish. A touch of candied ginger spices things up as a fruity but dry tobacco leaf rounds out the end with the faintest touch of walnut shells.
Bottom Line:
This was one of our favorite whiskeys of the year. It’s just delicious from top to bottom and its got an incredibly Don Draper-esque midcentury bottle. If that doesn’t qualify it as a great gift bottle, we don’t know what does.