Dying Genre: Best Bourbons Under $20 in 2022

Hey everybody, Fred Minnick here. I've been covering American whiskey for 16 years, since 2006, and there has been a theme during that time frame. What is value bourbon? Value bourbon has changed from like $10 to $15 to $20 to $30, where to now I can actually make an argument that a $60 bourbon, as long as it's available everywhere, is a value bourbon. And I gotta tell you, it's getting a little pricey out there. But you can still find bourbon for $20 and under. Now this is a tier of bourbon that's typically below 90 proof, so you'll see a lot of bourbons out there like Vario Barton, Benchmark, that are 86, 80 proof, and it's a sea of not your typical 100 proofers. But the list I have for you today has some meat on the bone. There are some 100 proof bourbons on this list, and one of them is so good that it has beaten some bourbons four times its price in blind tastings. But let's get to this list, shall we? Here we go. At number 8, Jim Beam White Label. I know what you're thinking. Jim Beam's everywhere, it's a common brand, but it is under $20. And when I'm at a baseball game, I see Jim Beam at a lot of places. And you know what? In a pinch, it works just fine. The prominent note there on a Jim Beam is a little cornbread, but you throw some ice in there, and then it becomes like, well, it's drinking time. But if you want to sip it by itself, I think don't add water, don't add ice. I actually have done a lot of blind tastings with Jim Beam, and they've done quite well. In fact, one of the rapid age companies a long time ago sat me down and put Jim Beam, Woodford and a couple other things in with all of their rapid age products, and Jim Beam came out number one. So a lot of those rapid age products out there, they're not better than Jim Beam, and it's a great pour for usually between $10 and $15. Some markets, depending on the taxes, you got to remember, a lot of the pricing in your market is dependent upon your state's taxes or your country's taxes. But for the most part, you should be able to find Jim Beam White Label under $20. At number seven, it is a bourbon, it is a bourbon, Jack Daniels. I dare say Jack Daniels is probably the most difficult thing to make consistently because they have so many pieces going into it. You got the charcoal mellowing prior to it going into a barrel, and they have to maintain a consistency on such a wide spread of things. I mean, they have to make a lot of whiskey. The world's number one selling whiskey, they are the most counterfeited whiskey, and American whiskey that is, and it is just, to me, a really great under $20 pour that is, to me, it is the quintessential pour with Coca-Cola. I will take Jack and Coke over pretty much everything with Coca-Cola, and there are times that I want a Jack and Coke, and there's nothing wrong with that if you like that too. But if you're drinking it neat or even add a cube of ice, the most prominent note that you will get there is going to be banana. Because of the yeast they use and their fermentation techniques there at Jack Daniels, they basically get a big giant helping of banana. So if you're a fan of banana nut bread or a raw banana or banana pudding, you know, you're not going to find a better pour for yourself under $20 than Jack Daniels. At number six, Very Old Barton. Now the last three products that we've had have all been 80 proof. So Jim Beam 80 proof, Jack Daniels 80 proof, and the most widely distributed Very Old Barton 80 proof. You will find other proof points of Very Old Barton in Kentucky, but they're not as widely as distributed as the 80 proof. Here's the thing about Very Old Barton. It's sneaky good. It is really sneaky good. Like you could find like a lot of flavors in that depending on like what year. There's a lot of old Very Old Barton out there in circulation. So you may actually go to your local liquor store and find a bottle of Very Old Barton that's from 2012. People just overlook it. And so it is one of those where they haven't changed the label or anything. It's just the same little, you know, squatty voluptuous bottle and the whiskey in it, you know, is very good. It's coming out of Barton, which is 1792. So think of this as like a precursor to becoming 1792. This bottle is usually around $10 to $12. You know, in some markets, you might even find it for $8. So if you're on an extreme budget, Very Old Barton is a fantastic pour. And I do think that the best way to sip it is neat. But in my home, we use it for our batch cocktailing. So Very Old Barton is a preferred mixer in my home for batch cocktails. The most prominent note you're going to get there with Very Old Barton, you know, that's a tough one for me because there's a few different ones there. But I'm going to say a piece of toast, like a nice piece of toast, a little butter over it so you get some like bready notes, but it's still, you know, got a little creaminess to it. So Very Old Barton coming in at number six. At number five, Old Forrester 86 Proof. Old Forrester 86 Proof is pretty darn tasty. Now this is a very good four-year-old Kentucky straight bourbon distilled in Louisville and aged in heat-cycled warehouses. It tends to have a banana note. It's a common theme in Brown Forman products, but it has a really prominent banana note. You can find this for $12, $15. It's also a favorite of bartenders to put in the well. So when you go to Chicago or New York and you ask what's their well bourbon, a lot of times it's Old Forrester 86 Proof. It's got just enough proof points, you know, to outmeasure those 80-point bourbons and so stands up a little better in a cocktail and the flavors are really pronounced. And like I said, that banana note is there. Some other notes to look for when you're tasting Old Forrester 86 Proof, cherry. I always get a little hint of cherry in there. So you're not going to break the bank with this one. It's quite tasty and it is a bartender's preference in the well. So at number five, Old Forrester. At number four, Evan Williams Black Label. So a long time ago, a handful of us whiskey writers came out and said like, until Kraft Whiskey is better than Evan Williams Black Label, it's not going to make it. And so Evan Williams Black Label, for a lot of us professional tasters, is the standard of entry for bourbon. And the fact is, it is really good. You know, the composite in there is four to six years old of Heaven Hill Whiskey and, you know, that whiskey is like, it's a large, large dump, you know, so they have a lot of barrels going into these batches, but it's always very consistent. I would say that Evan Williams is probably the most fantastically consistent Kentucky bourbon on the market, and that is hard to do. It is hard to get a bottle to taste the same today as it was 10 years ago. You know, it's just, you know, your needs for the barrels change, the ingredients change, but it's just, it's so, it's so different. And I drank it neat. I actually like Evan Williams Black Label with fried chicken because this has, it has like a fried, kind of like fried crispy component to it that tastes, you know, the fried chicken has a nice fried crispy component to it that to me pairs very nicely with Evan Williams Black Label. And I also used to do that with Henry McKenna, so I think the Heaven Hill style of bourbon is just really good with fried chicken and sign me up for some Nashville hot fried chicken right now. That sounds so good. Do you have a favorite Nashville fried hot chicken place? Put it in the comment section. I want to go to it and gain five pounds and probably have way too many peppers because I like hot chicken. So I want to know what's your favorite Nashville hot chicken is. All right. So I digress. Number four, Evan Williams Black Label, the most prominent note there for me is like a fried piece of bread. Pairs nicely with fried chicken. At number three, Old Forrester 100 Proof. You learned about Old Forrester 86 Proof earlier, but this is the 100 Proof. Now they used to call this, they used to call this Old Forrester Signature. They rebranded it to 100 Proof, you know, a couple of years ago. Why distillers do this? I don't know. They're always like, you know, they have like 15 MBAs in a room and say, why aren't our sales better than this brand over here? And then someone over here, you know, pats their chin dustly and say, I know what we need to do. We need to change the brand name from Signature to 100 Proof. Yes, that will bring us to the next level. And who knows, maybe they were right because it's in a lot of bars across Kentucky. In fact, you can't really call yourself a bourbon bar unless you have Old Forrester 100 Proof. There are people who would prefer to drink that over Pappy Van Winkle. So the legion of fans for that one bottle, Old Forrester 100 Proof, to me outweighs everything else on this list. That particular bottle has an enormous following. And you know what? It does really, really well in blind tastings. So what's the most prominent note there? For me, it's a fried cherry pie. You know, like if you went to McDonald's, you get that nice hot fried cherry pie. As long as it didn't melt your hand off and, you know, scold your face as you put it in your mouth. That's the note I'm talking about. If you ever had that as a kid, chef's kiss. So at number three, Old Forrester 100 Proof. At number two, and probably going to draw a lot of hate from those who seek this bottle out, JTS Brown 100 Proof Bottled and Bond. Now this one's not as widely available as everything else on the list. It is very prominently available in Kentucky, but you will find it at BevMo. You can find it at Benny's in Chicago. How do I know? Because I've walked in those stores and I've seen them there. So if you go into a store and they say they can't get it through distribution, you know, however they get them in those markets, I don't know. All I know is all the prominent bourbon liquor stores I've gone to, they have JTS Brown. And put in the comment section if JTS Brown 100 Proof Bottled and Bond is in your market. I would be curious to know. Now this is a really good bourbon for under $20, but Heaven Hill puts literally no marketing into it. They just put it on the shelf, and Heaven Hill has a tendency to find these little nuggets of value, take them off the shelf, rebrand them, and put them back on the shelf after dumping a bunch of marketing and MBA discussions about changing the bottle and everything. We've seen that with Old Fitzgerald, the creation of Larceny, Heaven Hill, and now coming up Evan Williams Single Barrel. So I imagine JTS Brown is probably going to get reworked by Heaven Hill at some point in the next 10 years, because there's enough of us who love it, and I probably really shouldn't talk about it, but you know what, I'm creating a list for those of you all who are getting into bourbon, wanting to find some value here. Right now, JTS Brown Bottled and Bond is an enormous value, and it's under $20 in every liquor store I've seen it in. You can find it online at various places as well. Now what's the prominent note here? I would say that there's a few here, but there's a nice Nutella note I get in the JTS Brown Bottled and Bond. So if you are on the hunt for something that's of great value, JTS Brown Bottled and Bond at number two. At number one, Evan Williams Bottled and Bond, Bottled and Bond, Evan Williams, and the most important thing is it's available nationally, and if it's not available nationally, things have changed since I last checked. But this right here was my best everyday bourbon a couple years ago, and it defeated a lot of major brands in a blind tasting. When I increased the price range to include Old Forrester 1920, which is a $60 bourbon, which that won my best everyday bourbon, Evan Williams Bottled and Bond almost beat that particular bourbon, and it's just frankly, for the money, you cannot beat this. This for the money, under $20, in some markets you will find it over $20, and again, it's all about taxes. It's all about what that liquor store has and what kind of money they need to make and what the distributors are doing in terms of their case sales. But for the most part, Evan Williams Bottled and Bond across the United States of America is under $20. Where it is in foreign markets, I don't know. But here in Kentucky, you can come in, get a case, and not spend a ton of money. There's also Heaven Hill Bottled and Bond, and this is very close to JTS Brown Bottled and Bond and JW Dent Bottled and Bond, but the best bottled and bond in the Heaven Hill portfolio under $20, in my opinion, is Evan Williams Bottled and Bond. Now that being said, that's my list, and the most prominent note that I have gotten over the years with Evan Williams Bottled and Bond, it is kind of like a little grain note, almost like a corn tortilla, but think of like a little honey, a little honey butter, like a soap-a-pea, like a soap-a-pea. Who doesn't like a good soap-a-pea? So that is my list for the best bourbons under $20. Now if you want to go to that next level, to that $25 to $30 price point, these days you're looking at Bullet, Elijah Craig, Wild Turkey, but who knows how long that's going to stay the same, given how much things are changing in pricing. Today, what is available and what is considered an everyday bourbon is much different than when I first started covering this amazing industry, but you can still find great pours for under $20, and this right here, in my opinion, is the best of them all. So that's my list for best bourbons under $20. Now you can spend a lot more money out there if you're on a budget, Evan Williams Bottled and Bond, in my opinion, is going to outtaste things that are $60, even $80, and darn near will outtaste like a 10-year-old, some of the 10-year-old source products. This is really great bang for your buck, and you don't have to spend a lot of money in bourbon to find great bang for your buck. Now this isn't a sexy bottle. This doesn't come with a cork or any kind of FOMO around it, but you know what? You don't need to think of others as you're sipping what's in here, because it is good. Now that's going to do it for this list, and this is what I believe is the best bourbon under $20. If you agree with that, put it in the comment section. If you disagree with that, put it in the comment section. Also, I've got other lists coming up. If you have an idea for a list, put it in the comment section. Maybe I'll produce it as a video. In addition, click that subscribe button, click that like button. It helps people find this channel, and we are a small but mighty growing channel, and thank you for tuning in. Also, check out my books. Go to fredminek.com to join my free newsletter where you can learn about my barrel picks. Cheers everybody. Cocka Sucks. Damn. That's so much better than $20. That soap-a-pea note, honey. See ya.