I’m mostly a casual whiskey drinker but I’ve recently been experimenting with various whiskey of the month clubs. These have helped me learn more about the nuances of whiskey along with the differences between various choices. In this list, I’m taking a specific look at just one type of whiskey – bourbon.
Bourbon whiskey is typically American-made and distilled from corn. There is also a specific set of requirements for bourbon made for US consumption, including the use of new charred oak containers and having more than 51% corn in the grain mixture.
Of course, the difference isn’t just in how the whiskey is made. Bourbon is often defined as having notes of vanilla, caramel and oak, although the flavor varies depending on the brand and the batch.
Bourbon is also a versatile whiskey and is often included in cocktail recipes. There are other interesting ways to drink bourbon too. What’s more, bourbon can typically be used in any recipe that asks for whiskey – making it a perfect spirit to keep around the house.
For this list, I’m focusing on any clubs that offer regular mailings of bourbon. These typically provide full bottles and their focus is on convenience and experimentation, not price. This means you won’t get dramatic discounts with any club but you may get to try whiskey that you wouldn’t normally find in your area.
If you want whiskey samples, then Flaviar is clearly your best choice. You’ll try more bourbon with Flaviar than any other club. You’ll get a 3-dram sample pack plus a full bottle each quarter. They have many spirits you can order, including craft tequila, gin, and Scotch, but they have a fantastic bourbon selection too.
This is an all around fun club to be in. You get to select the bourbon you want each quarter, so this is not a curated club like the other clubs.
For a full bottle of bourbon delivered monthly, plus excellent educational resources, I prefer Mash & Grape or Pour More.
Mash & Grape includes shipping and the club is a straightforward $79/month, no options, no discounts. However, Pour More has 2 tiers of Bourbon clubs — beginner/explorer, for $49/$79. You can also select to pre-pay for up to 12 months and get a discount.
In addition to the clubs, I’ve included various other ways to have whiskey sent to you, including gift baskets, crates and similar options. After all, a club won’t always be the right choice and variety is never a bad thing.
Bourbon Of The Month Clubs
***Did you know?*** Flaviar has mini “taster kits” for many types of spirits including scotch, bourbon, tequila, gin, brandy, and more. Get 3 vials of your favorite spirits to try, plus free shipping. Then, get access to exclusive bottles and tastings of hard-to-find spirits.
NEW! Taster’s Club
Just found a new one. Taster’s Club claims to help you get hard to find craft bourbons delivered right to your door, then educate you about them. That sounds like my kind of thing.
Of course, I prefer the small tasters, but honestly the site looks super high quality and I can’t resist the phrases
Learn from expert-level tasting, history and distillery notes
…curate a list of premium and hard to find bourbons produced by craft distillers across the United States
I mean. That’s my jam. Gotta try it. They do have some negative reviews online though, so we’ll see how it goes.
This subscription costs $69.99 per month, if you pay month-to-month. You can also prepay for 3, 6, or 12 months, but oddly the prepaid versions end up costing more per month.
Each shipment provides you with a full sized bottle of bourbon, plus a Digital 101 information packet. That information packet provides valuable information about the bourbon, including drinking suggestions and tasting notes.
Previous selections for the club have included Burnside 10 Year Buckman Rsv Bourbon and Barrell Craft Spirits Private Release Bourbon.
Mash & Grape
Another club to consider is the Bourbon Explorer from Mash & Grape. This club can be ordered as a 3, 6, or 12 month subscription and always averages $69 per month. No gimmicks. No hidden tricks. Once again, the club offers a single full-sized bottle of bourbon each month.
Details about the bourbon are included as well, so you get to learn about what you’re drinking. This includes tasting notes, along with information about the bourbon’s history.
The club also offers two key bonuses. One of these is a concierge service, which helps you to source gifts and rare bottles. Additionally, members get the first option to buy new products that Mash & Grape sources. These services are perfect for anyone who wants to expand their collection over time.
Previous selections in this club have included Barrell Bourbon 015, Coppersea Bourbon, and Widow Jane 10.
Pour More
With Pour More, you get to define the quality of your whiskey. In particular, they used to have three different clubs, each with their own pricing. Now it’s just two: Introduction to Bourbon, and the Bourbon Explorer. The intro club is $49/month paid monthly, and it’s $79 for the explorer option.
Both clubs offer discounts for pre-paying for 3, 6, or 12 months, so you can get the cheap club for as little as $45/month and the expensive one for as little as $72/month if you prepay.
All of the membership options give you a single 750ml bottle of bourbon each month. You also get a review of that whiskey, a description of it and links to useful information online.
The key difference with the clubs is simply the quality of the whiskey. The Bourbon Intro tier works well for anyone who is budget-conscious, while the other option offers rarer and more high-quality bottles. Unfortunately, Pour More doesn’t offer details about the bottles they’ve featured in the past, so it’s hard to know what to expect.
Spirited Gifts
Spirited Gifts really is about gifts and their Bourbon of the Month club reflects that. The club itself isn’t an ongoing membership. Instead, you purchase 3 months at a time, for $399. That calculates to $133 per month and you get a 750 ml bottle each time.
The company states that you receive a rare or classic bottle each month, with the selection constantly changing. But, you don’t appear to get any notes about the whiskey itself.
The membership is clearly designed as a gift and can even be wrapped. This may make it unappealing for some people. But, if you’re wanting to treat yourself, it could still work well.
Spirits Gifts doesn’t provide details about previous expressions, but they do have plenty of images of bourbon collections. The bourbons they ship are likely to be of the same quality as those they display.
Bounty Hunter
The Bourbon Trail Club from Bounty Hunter is another interesting choice. This costs $249 per shipment and you can order either monthly or quarterly. Their prices here may seem high but you are getting 2 full bottles of bourbon, rather than just 1.
Bounty Hunter describes their club as ‘American Whiskey with a Bourbon focus’. As such, most of the whiskeys you get should be bourbon but they won’t all be. This makes it a good club for variety but less appealing if you just want bourbon.
Tasting notes are provided with this club, along with detailed information about the whiskeys themselves and food pairing. The club also offers bonuses, which tend to be discounts on products, along with the chance to buy rare wines.
What’s more, the company keeps PDFs of their tasting notes back to 2020 on the site. You can see these before signing up to the club, showing you clearly what types of whiskey to expect. For example, their January 2023 notes can be seen here. That shipment featured Bardstown Bourbon Company Discovery Series #7 Blended Whiskey and Buffalo Trace ‘Bounty Hunter Private Selection No. 12’ Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey.
Aries Fine Wines & Spirits
Aries Fine Wine & Spirits always strikes me as a low-quality company and they certainly aren’t my first choice. Even so, they do offer 2 clubs to consider. The first is the Beginner Bourbon of the Month Club, which starts at $99.99 per month. They also have an Advanced Bourbon of the Month Club. That one starts at $189.99 per month.
The main difference between the two clubs is the bourbon you get. So, the advanced club tends to offer older and more expensive bourbons, ones that you’re less likely to find elsewhere. However, the company doesn’t offer much information about the bourbons that you’re likely to get, where they are sourced from, or how they are chosen.
Both clubs also come with monthly descriptions of the whiskey, tasting notes, and additional useful information. For the first month, you also receive a tasting glass (2 for the advanced club) and a tasting journal.
1-877 Spirits
One last option is the Bourbon’s Best Club from 1-877 Spirits. This is a fixed-term club and just runs for 3 months. Membership costs $225, which averages out to $75 per month.
Unlike the other clubs, this one doesn’t have any surprises. Instead, the 3 whiskeys you get are always the same. The first is Woodford Reserve Bourbon, the second is Maker’s Mark and the final one is Old Forester Kentucky Straight Bourbon. These are all common bourbons, ones you could just buy locally.
The main advantage of this membership is just the convenience. It would also work well as a gift. Other than that, you would probably save money just buying the booze yourself.
Crates and Boxes
The Bro Basket
The Bro Basket is a good place to start if you’re looking for a unique gift for the bourbon lover in your life. They have many different alcohol gift baskets and you can even change the spirits included for most of them. The best bourbon-related choice is their A Bite of Bourbon box. This contains 50ml bottles of 6 different bourbons, along with a selection of snacks, a can of Coke, and a tumbler.
Most of the other bourbon boxes just contain Maker’s Mark (very common) or include Scotch and other whiskeys. Hey, I like Scotch too, but this is a bourbon list.
Spirited Gifts
The club from Spirited Gifts isn’t especially impressive but the same can’t be said about their bourbon gift baskets. The company offers a considerable range of these in many different styles. Some are even engravable.
Most of the baskets offer one full-sized bottle of whiskey and various snacks and treats. For example, the Four Roses Small Batch Gift Basket contains truffles, cheese, popcorn, and pretzels, along with the bourbon itself.
1-877 Spirits
1-877 Spirits isn’t my first choice for spirit-based gift baskets but they do have a few good ones. For bourbon, I especially like their Woodford Reserve Bourbon Gift Basket. The end selection looks refined and elegant, which would appeal to some bourbon drinkers.
Mel & Rose
My favorite thing about Mel & Rose is the selection. They have more than 150 different alcohol gift baskets, with many different styles and themes. Of course, a large selection is a little difficult too, as there it can take a while to go through them all. But, if you’re willing to take the time, there are some great baskets to choose from.
One especially good choice is the Bourbon Lover’s Dream. There are multiple variations of this basket at Mel & Rose, with different choices for the bourbon. That lets you match the gift to whoever is going to receive it.
Pompei Gift Baskets
There are two main bourbon baskets from Pompei Gifts. One is the Sophisticated Reserve Whiskey Gift Basket, while the other is the Rustic Tucker Bourbon Gift Basket. Of the two, the rustic basket is my personal favorite and the overall style simply works well.
Master of Malt (NON US)
Master of Malt is a UK company but they do ship to the United States. One of their main gift options is tasting sets. These offer small drams of a spirit, typically 30ml each and often come with 5 or 10 different drams. These provide the perfect way to try obscure or expensive whiskeys that you simply wouldn’t otherwise.
A fun alternative is their Bourbon Advent Calendar. This is a 24-day advent calendar, with each door offering a different 30ml dram of bourbon. These include many rare and small-batch products. It makes a fun gift or just a way to treat yourself.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is There A Bourbon Tasting Club?
If you’re looking for bourbon tasting, then Flaviar is the best club to try, as most others focus on full bottles of whiskey each month. When you sign up for Flaviar, you get to choose which bottles or Tasting Boxes of whiskey you get shipped each month.
The tasting boxes are a fantastic way to try different types of whiskey. There are plenty to choose from, so you’re not likely to get bored. Flaviar also provides some engaging tasting notes, along with details about the distiller that created each of the expressions.
The only catch is that there are no surprises with this club. You choose every shipment, so you always know what is on its way.
Why Is Bourbon So Expensive?
A few factors are currently driving up the price of bourbon. One is the competition in the market, as some companies are responding to the addition of new brands by releasing increasingly high end products.
Another issue is demand. There’s a lot of interest in high-quality whiskey and that whiskey takes time to produce. When demand increases faster than supply like this, product price tends to increase. The economy isn’t great right now either, which isn’t helping matters.
Unfortunately, bourbon clubs don’t help to solve this issue. Purchasing through a club tends to be more expensive than buying a bottle of bourbon from the store (although, clubs are fun, convenient, and a great way to try unusual whiskey expressions).
Do You Sip Or Shoot Bourbon?
Bourbon is generally sipped, as this allows you to fully experience the rich flavor profile. You miss everything that makes bourbon special if you consume it as a shot instead.
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