Four Roses Single Barrel Bourbon is one of those bottles I find myself recommending more than almost anything else in its price range. At £46.50 and bottled at a proper 50% ABV, it sits in a sweet spot that a lot of bourbons miss entirely — serious enough for sipping, affordable enough that you won't wince pouring it into a cocktail.
For anyone unfamiliar with Four Roses, their approach is unusual in the bourbon world. They work with ten distinct recipes — combinations of two mashbills and five proprietary yeast strains — and the Single Barrel expression is built from just one of those recipes: OBSV. That 'V' yeast strain is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here, and the 'B' mashbill (around 35% rye content) gives this a spicier backbone than your average bourbon. It's a deliberate, focused product rather than a blend-to-profile exercise, and that clarity of intent comes through in the glass.
At 50% ABV, this has real presence without being aggressive. It's not cask strength — it's been proofed down to a point where everything holds together but you still get that warmth and weight that lower-proof bourbons sacrifice. I've always appreciated when a distillery picks a bottling strength that actually serves the whisky rather than just hitting a number, and 100 proof feels right for this style.
Being a NAS (no age statement) bourbon, some drinkers get twitchy, but honestly, for a single barrel product at this quality level, the proof of concept is in the bottle. Four Roses have consistently delivered here, and whatever age range they're pulling from clearly works. The higher rye content in the mashbill and that specific yeast strain create enough complexity that you're not relying on extreme age to generate interest.
Tasting Notes
I'll hold off on specific tasting notes for now — a proper structured tasting is in the works and I want to do this one justice. What I will say is that the 50% ABV and high-rye mashbill point you toward a bourbon with real backbone and spice, balanced by the kind of fruit and floral character that Four Roses' yeast strains are known for producing. It rewards a few drops of water but doesn't need them.
The Verdict
At £46.50, Four Roses Single Barrel is genuinely hard to beat. You're getting a single barrel bourbon at 50% ABV from one of Kentucky's most consistent producers, at a price that plenty of inferior blended bourbons would love to charge. It punches well above its weight, and it's the kind of bottle that converts people who think they don't like bourbon. I'm giving it a 7.9 — it loses half a mark for the lack of age transparency and sits just below the very top tier of single barrels, but for everyday quality bourbon drinking, this is the one I reach for. If you can find it at this price, don't think twice.
Best Served
This is a natural Old Fashioned bourbon. The higher rye spice and 50% ABV mean it stands up beautifully to dilution and sweetener without losing its identity. Two dashes of Angostura, a barspoon of demerara syrup, a big rock of ice. The proof holds everything together as the ice opens it up. It's equally good neat with a splash of water — give it five minutes in the glass before you start judging it, because it genuinely evolves as it breathes.
