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Best bourbon in the UK: picks by mash bill

Bourbon picks for UK buyers by mash bill and proof, from wheated Maker's Mark and high-rye Four Roses to Wild Turkey 101 and bottled in bond, at UK prices.

Written by the Uisge Beatha team

Published Updated

This guide links to retailers. Some links may earn us a commission; picks are based on the price data and the criteria below.

For a UK buyer, the quickest way to choose a bourbon is by mash bill, the grains in the recipe. Start with Maker’s Mark for a wheated bourbon or Four Roses Single Barrel for a rye-led one, then look at the bottled-in-bond and higher-strength picks below. Every price is for the bottle sold in the UK, most of them 70cl, at today’s prices. New to bourbon? Start with best bourbon for beginners.

Bourbon must be made in the United States from at least 51% corn and matured in new charred oak containers (what is bourbon). The rest of the mash is usually rye or wheat plus malted barley, and that second grain is what the sections below are built on. For one pick from every style, see the best whisky to buy in the UK.

Wheated bourbon

Maker’s Mark: £35.00 at The Whisky Shop. A Kentucky straight bourbon at 45% ABV from Maker’s Mark, founded in 1954, which says it uses soft red winter wheat instead of the usual rye.

High-rye bourbon

Four Roses Single Barrel: £44.95 at Master of Malt. A bourbon at 50% ABV (100 proof) from Four Roses, bottled one barrel at a time. Four Roses says it uses its OBSV recipe, which combines the distillery’s more rye-forward B mash bill with its V yeast, and ages it for seven to nine years.

For straight rye whiskey, which needs at least 51% rye, see rye whiskey.

Classic Kentucky straight bourbon

Woodford Reserve: £35.50 at Master of Malt. The standard bourbon from Woodford Reserve, owned by Brown-Forman, bottled at 43.2% ABV.

Michter’s US*1 Kentucky Straight Bourbon: £57.95 at Master of Malt. A Kentucky straight bourbon at 45.7% ABV from Michter’s.

Bottled in bond

A bottled-in-bond bourbon comes from one distillery and one distilling season, is aged at least four years in a bonded warehouse and is bottled at exactly 50% ABV (100 proof), under the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897.

Evan Williams White Label Bottled in Bond: £36.00 at Master of Malt. A bottled-in-bond bourbon at 50% ABV.

Leiper’s Fork Bottled in Bond: £74.95 at Hard To Find Whisky. A bottled-in-bond bourbon at 50% ABV from Leiper’s Fork in Tennessee, which shows that bourbon need not come from Kentucky.

Higher strength

These are bottled at 50% ABV or more. The strength is stated as a fact about the bottle, not a reason to choose it; add water to taste.

Wild Turkey 101: £33.95 at Master of Malt. A Kentucky bourbon at 50.5% ABV, the 101 US proof in its name.

Knob Creek 9 Year Old: £38.02 at Master of Malt. A nine-year-old Kentucky bourbon at 50% ABV.

For sipping or for mixing

Any of these can be sipped or mixed. For cocktails, the guides to whisky for cocktails and whisky for an Old Fashioned name the bottles that work best in each drink. If you like Blanton’s or Buffalo Trace, see bourbons like Blanton’s and Buffalo Trace.

The most widely stocked bourbon today

This list updates with every build: the full-size bourbons sold by the most UK retailers we check.

70cl and 75cl bottles

UK and EU shelves are 70cl, while American bottles are usually 75cl, so some imported bourbons reach UK shops in 75cl bottles. Every card shows the bottle size, so compare like with like. Tennessee whiskey has its own page: Tennessee whiskey. For every bourbon, see bourbon.

How we chose

Member ratings are not shown on this site yet, so these picks are not ranked by score, and we have not ranked them against each other. We grouped bourbons by mash bill, using the producer’s stated recipe, then by the label terms bottled in bond and proof. Each pick is a full-size bottle (50cl to 1 litre) sold by at least three UK retailers we check on 11 November 2026 (Maker’s Mark and Wild Turkey 101 by two), favouring core-range bottles over limited editions; most sit in the £30 to £50 band. Two picks, Maker’s Mark and Woodford Reserve, are also on the beginners’ guide. Ages and strengths come from the bottle details; the lines are label facts, not tasting notes. Prices change daily, and the retailer’s checkout price is the one that counts. Read how we compare prices.

Questions

What does wheated bourbon mean?
A bourbon whose main grain after corn is wheat instead of rye. Maker’s Mark is the best-known example: the distillery says it uses soft red winter wheat instead of the usual rye, and its standard Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky is bottled at 45% ABV. Rye-led bourbons, such as Four Roses Single Barrel on its more rye-forward B mash bill, are the other main family.
Is Jack Daniel's a bourbon?
It is sold as Tennessee whiskey, not bourbon. It is made from a corn-led mash and aged in new charred oak like bourbon, but the new spirit is first filtered through sugar maple charcoal, the Lincoln County Process, which Tennessee law has protected since 2013 (Whiskipedia on charcoal mellowing). See Tennessee whiskey.
Does bourbon have to come from Kentucky?
No. US rules allow bourbon to be made anywhere in the United States (27 CFR 5.143), though most of it comes from Kentucky. Leiper’s Fork Bottled in Bond, for example, is a bourbon from Tennessee at 50% ABV, and FEW Bourbon comes from Illinois.