Seelbach's Private Reserve Wheated Bourbon Review
The moment a bottle says wheated and 107 proof, everyone asks the same question: is this the Weller killer? I'll save you the suspense. It isn't, and not because it fails a note-for-note match against Weller Antique 107. It isn't trying to be a copy at all. Seelbach's Private Reserve Wheated reads more like a homage, built by people who studied what makes the style work and then built their own version of it.
This version comes out of Green River Distilling Co. in Owensboro, a site running for years under the name O.Z. Tyler before reclaiming the Green River name in 2020. The name goes back over a century, to a pre-Prohibition Kentucky whiskey brand sold under the slogan "The Whiskey Without Regrets." Reviving the name on a site with real production history behind it isn't only marketing. It's a distillery leaning into ground making whiskey since before most modern bourbon brands existed.
The label behind this release has its own history worth knowing. Blake Riber started bourbonr.com years ago and became known across bourbon circles for popularizing the "Poor Man's Pappy," a blend of Weller Antique 107 and Weller 12 built to approximate the Van Winkle experience without the Van Winkle price tag or wait list. He later turned the blog into Seelbach's, an online bottle shop built around one idea: bourbon fans shouldn't need to chase allocated bottles store to store when quality whiskey shows up at the door instead. His signature is even stamped right on the label, batch after batch.
This bottle lands at an interesting moment for the category. Allocated wheated bourbon like Weller has spent years running short of demand, and a wave of smaller regional distillers are stepping in to fill the gap themselves instead of waiting on the big names. I like what competition like this does for a category. Enough of it showing up stands to help stabilize price and availability for wheated bourbon overall, even if stabilizing any one brand was never the goal.
The Bottle
Distillery: Green River Distilling Co.
Release: Summer 2025
Batch: 007
Classification: Wheated Bourbon
Proof: 107 (53.5% ABV)
Age: No age statement.
Mash Bill: 70% Corn, 21% Wheat, 9% Malted Barley
MSRP: $50
First Impression: Honey and vanilla lead the nose, with baking spice and a note of ripe apricot underneath.
On the Palate: Blackberry and brown sugar settle into a medium body, with caramel, black pepper, and cherry pie rounding things out. The heat runs warm without turning sharp.
The Last Sip: Tobacco and toasted grain carry into a medium finish, with butterscotch and a last note of mixed berry jam lingering behind.
Final Thoughts
The best part of this bottle might not be what's in the glass. It's the story behind it: a writer who built bourbon-internet fame off a DIY Pappy substitute, then built an actual company around getting good whiskey into people's hands without the chase. Few brands in this industry tell a story this good, and it's baked into every bottle of Private Reserve Wheated whether a drinker knows it or not.
As for the juice itself, would it stump you and your buddies in a blind tasting against the big names? Not likely, and I don't think it's trying to prove anything of the sort. My notes cover Batch 007 and nothing past it. The blend moves from batch to batch, and I found no age statement on this bottle to anchor it against. Your batch might pour differently than mine.
At $50, this is an easy bottle to keep in the rotation, especially if Weller has sat on your wish list for too long. It isn't a substitute for the real thing, but it's a genuinely good pour in its own right, and it's worth more than chasing a label.
