Ranking The Big Bourbon Brands, From Worst To Best

No liquor speaks to American history, folklore, and tradition like bourbon. While whiskey can be made anywhere, bourbon can only be made in the United States, according to Distiller, and its mash bill (grain composition) must contain at least 51% corn, a grain native to the Americas. Officially defined as American-made corn-based whiskey aged in new charred oak barrels, bourbon first emerged in the 1780s in Kentucky, where settlers from Scotland and Ireland adapted their whiskey-making skills to local ingredients, as explained by The Spruce Eats.

Beyond these basics, the details of bourbon's history are murky. Was the technique of aging bourbon in charred oak barrels, the signature step responsible for bourbon's unique flavor, invented by Elijah Craig in 1789, the Tarascon brothers in 1807, or, more prosaically, the improvisation of numerous distillers who charred the interiors of used fish barrels to deodorize and sterilize them? The truth may be lost to time, but many of the original family-owned distilleries from the 1700s are still going strong, albeit under new corporate ownership in some cases. So if you've ever enjoyed bourbon from Maker's Mark or Jim Beam, know that you've experienced a taste of early American history. Clearly, such heritage brands have stood the test of time — here's how they fare in comparison with newer players in the bourbon game. But remember, taste is subjective, and at the end of the day, your rankings are the only ones that count.

Jim Beam is not only one of the biggest-selling bourbon brands, but it is one of the oldest. The Beam (originally Boehm) family settled in Kentucky and began selling whiskey there in 1795, according to The Whiskey Reviewer. Today, the brand produces numerous expressions of bourbon, from its young, sweet Original Bourbon to its Green Label, Black Label, Rye, and other varieties. While one of the most familiar bourbon brands, Jim Beam is not known for its depth or subtlety. The Whiskey Reviewer described its Original Bourbon as having a nose "like a thin, sweet vanilla syrup" and a finish that's "sweet, but not especially long or deep." Its Black Label Bourbon is a bit more nuanced, with "flavors of caramel, oak, and very light charcoal," according to a separate review on The Whiskey Reviewer.

Jim Beam may not be practicing the world's most ambitious blending and distilling, but for a brand to have lasted over 200 years, it must be doing something right. And that something is offering up decent bottles at affordable prices. As The Whiskey Reviewer noted, the Black Bourbon, in particular, "would be appropriate for an inexpensive go-to, for cocktails or mixers."

No, Widow Jane is not Basil Hayden's elderly aunt. Rather, Brooklyn, New-York-based Widow Jane is a relative newcomer to the bourbon scene. Founded in 2012, the brand is so young the bourbons it produces in its own distillery in upstate New York are not yet sufficiently aged for consumption, according to 31 Whiskey. Rather, Widow Jane currently sources its bourbons from several undisclosed distilleries in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana, then barrel-ages and blends them — which is how a nine-year-old company has been able to sell 10-year-old bourbon since its inception.

Widow Jane's claim to fame — and major marketing boast — is that its bourbon blends are finished with limestone-filtered water from the nearby Widow Jane mine. This claim, however, has been disputed by the Century House Historical Society, the current custodians of the mine and surrounding properties, as Blue Stone Press reported. In any case, Widow Jane is finished with fresh water from... somewhere. This touch results in a tasty-enough prototypical bourbon that "has left so much on the table due to being diluted down," according to Whiskey Consensus. And while flavorful enough, it's not all that unique, and its high price point makes it a difficult choice to get behind. It'll be interesting to see how Widow Jane evolves once its own distilled products start to enter the picture.

Maker's Mark is one of the best-known bourbon brands. If you have even a passing familiarity with bourbon, you'd probably recognize its distinctive square bottle and red wax-dipped cap from across the room. It's also known for its distinctive flavor, due to its unusual mash bill. Like all bourbon, its mash bill is mostly corn with a touch of malted barley. But unlike most other bourbon brands, Maker's Mark does not contain any rye, instead supplementing the corn with red winter wheat, according to The Spruce Eats.

This gives Maker's Mark a softer, richer flavor than rye-forward bourbons, with lots of caramel and fruit on the nose, and a pleasant hint of oak, according to Breaking Bourbon. It has a light mouthfeel and is less sweet than its aroma would suggest. It is, according to Breaking Bourbon, "a down-the-middle bourbon and will appeal to just about anyone." Its easygoing character gives Maker's Mark another advantage, according to The Spruce Eats; while not the most memorable tipple to enjoy neat, it's fabulous in cocktails.

Woodford Reserve is a modern bourbon brand with deep roots — per Breaking Bourbon, it's produced and bottled in a distillery dating back to 1780. It was intended from the start to be a premium brand — a radical idea at the time when bourbon was seen as a working person's drink. But it successfully managed to earn both public acceptance and respect, even becoming the official bourbon of the Kentucky Derby.

Woodford Reserve may have done almost too good a job at making premium bourbon acceptable — today, with hundreds of craft distillers creating their own premium blends, Woodford Reserve now falls near the middle of the curve in terms of price and status. Critical consensus seems to put it in the middle of the curve as well — not a terrible place to be at a time when even budget brands are turning out good-quality products. The Whiskey Shelf noted that it "has some of the quintessential bourbon flavors, but overall there's not a lot going on," and Breaking Bourbon said its "straightforward and approachable flavor profile" makes it a "good base for cocktails."

So, Woodford Reserve is near the middle of our list not because it's mediocre, but because it's solidly respectable — it delivers exactly what you'd expect from a mid-range bourbon, no more and no less.

When you think of Wild Turkey, do you picture an unshaven guy sitting by himself in a bar, muttering at the TV and nursing a tumbler of the stuff before shuffling off to a depressing studio apartment somewhere? Well, think again — this venerable bottom-shelf brand deserves a lot more respect than it's been getting. According to 31 Whiskey, the brand has its origins in the 1940s, when a liquor wholesaler picked up a bottle of nameless bourbon from a distillery he dealt with and took it to share on a turkey hunt. His friends loved it and kept begging him for more "wild turkey bourbon" — and the rest is history.

So how does it taste? Its flagship product, Wild Turkey 101, is a classic bourbon expression, with a typical mash bill of corn, rye, and malted barley. Per Breaking Bourbon, it features the expected caramel, toffee, and vanilla notes on the nose, followed by a hit of spice, oak, and butterscotch. On the palate, its candied notes are balanced by oak, char, and spice. It has a spicy, peppery finish with some heat. It could be smoother and its hotness may strike some as excessive — but it offers remarkable quality for a budget tipple, which is why it deserves a position in our top five bourbons.

Like Evan Williams, Elijah Craig is a Heaven Hill distillery brand named for a legendary figure in bourbon history. According to Breaking Bourbon, the original Elijah Craig was a Baptist preacher and said to be the inventor of the process of aging bourbon in charred oak barrels. Whether or not Craig actually did invent this process is up for debate, but what's not up for debate are the numerous awards given to the bourbon brand that shares his name. Elijah Craig's Barrel Proof expressions are regularly in the running for best bottle of the year, according to The Bourbon Bard. Their Barrel Proof Bourbon was named Whiskey of the Year by Whisky Advocate in 2017. Their Small Batch Bourbon took double gold in the San Francisco World Spirits Competition in 2018 and was named Best Small Batch at the same competition.

What makes Elijah Craig a critical favorite is its complexity and balance. As The Bourbon Bard noted, "It's versatile with the fruit notes lending themselves to summer drinking and the spice coming through for colder winter nights." Making a drink summery and wintery and pleasant to drink at the same time sounds like a fool's errand — but Elijah Craig seems to have figured it out.

Buffalo Trace is like that brilliant, beautiful, and disgustingly successful girl from school that you wanted to hate — but just couldn't because she was so very nice. Which only made you want to hate her more.

Buffalo Trace earned a reputation as a brand that turns casual drinkers into serious bourbon fans. The Bourbon Bard lauds it as "the bourbon that made me love the actual taste of bourbon," and Breaking Bourbon called it "instantly likeable and pleasant with notes of caramel, honey, orange, and vanilla" with a nose revealing "an underlying layer of oak and mint." In other words, it's easy to drink with all the expected bourbon flavors and aromas, with plenty of depth for serious sippers to appreciate.

But while easy to love, Buffalo Trace isn't always easy to find. This is because of its popularity; the brand simply can't make enough of the stuff to satisfy its thirsty fans. To mitigate this problem, Buffalo Trace implemented a distribution system that allocated a fixed number of bottles yearly to each state, according to Gear Patrol. This system was intended to make things fairer for consumers, but in some areas, there was the opposite effect, with fans crossing state lines in search of a bottle, according to The Bourbon Bard. Hence the hate. Still, any bourbon worth a day's drive is worth noticing — and worth the top honor on our list.