Best Bourbon of the Month Clubs

Best Overall: Mash&Grape Mash Box

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Why We Chose It: Mash&Grape focuses on providing its customers with top-quality products, including bourbons from lesser-known distilleries.

What We Like

• Outstanding curation
• Access to the in-house marketplace
• Exclusive bottle offers
• National retailer network
• Relationships with brands

What We Don't Like

• Does not ship to every state

A spin through the type of bourbons Mash&Grape assembles for its monthly subscriptions ($69 per month) reveals a lot of quality producers (think Old Scout, Kings County, and Kentucky Owl) and range (bottled-in-bond to peated).

The original idea with MashBox was straightforward: Take the curated experience of Mash&Grape’s spirits and wine market and put it on autopilot. Or, as founder and CEO Adi Pal puts it, ”Our customers like what they see and trust us to send them something awesome every month, and that feels great.”

Pal and his team hunt top products (rather than bargains) and approach the maker with the chance to appear before a desirable and engaged buyer. The search is aided by the fact that dozens of brands—many of them new—seek Mash&Grape’s e-commerce services (under Barcart), giving Mash a jump on scouting.

“We know we have good taste and we back it up—we’re betting on ourselves and our selection,” Pal says. “It’s premium bourbon, and you get a deal.”

Members receive finds worth remembering, access to Mash’s retail marketplace, and discounts on extremely allocated spirits from partner distilleries that simply aren’t made in enough quantity to be found elsewhere. Barrell Bourbon, for example, is now an established ally after Mash&Grape discovered it—and before Barrell earned a windfall in awards. As of December 2020, club members were expected to receive a one-off bourbon collaboration between the partners in the near future.

“These days we’re seeing more bourbon brands, but more brands of better quality,” Pal says.

Best Variety: Flaviar

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Why We Chose It: There’s a great vibe to the whole program and it checks all the boxes—including some many might not think of, such as a taster sampling and notes about each delivery.

What We Like

• Exacting curation
• Four tastes a shipment
• Members experience free shipping on qualified orders related to clubs
• Live tasting events
• Community discussion
• Customized choices

What We Didn't Like

• It can be hard to know which bottles to order
• You have to wait three months for a box

The appeal with this quarterly club ($95 per quarter) is manifold. For one, shipments include a choice of desirable 750-milliliter bottles in addition to a “tasting box” with three dram-sized 50-milliliter samples grouped around a theme and paired with lively tasting notes, a coaster, and helpful tasting guides. A bonus came in 2020 with the debut of the first-ever print Flaviar Times magazine, which is both comely and content-rich. Monthly access to The Vault offers opportunities to acquire rarities like WhistlePig The Boss Hog VII. A strong roster of auxiliary elements—including tasting and blending events (live and online) and VIP distillery tours—are appealing factors too. Meanwhile, Flaviar’s online “Boozefeed” provides a worthy range of additional content, whether that’s a video exploring Winston Churchill’s favorite drinks or a rundown of bourbon and rye cocktail recipes.

Members select a bottle from a gallery of spirits (including a wealth of non-bourbons); while having control over the options is inviting, it can be hard to choose from the heretofore-unknown bottles. But the number of rich and revelatory options is undeniable—and something CEO and co-Founder Grisa Soba takes pride in.

“The fact is consumers tend to stick with their go-to drink if ordering through regular online retail channels, which tend to inevitably favor the big boys, and this is why platforms like Flaviar are so important to smaller producers,” he says. “Discovery and a diversity of flavor [are] a fundamental part of what we’re all about.”

Best Trendsetter: Taster’s Club

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Why We Chose It: Taster’s is a textbook example of what one would want in a club: interesting bourbons, one price ($84, including shipping), frequency variability, and thorough educational materials.

What We Like

• Surprising selections
• Members' bottle shop
• Streamlined gifting
• Shipping included

What We Didn't Like

• Sporadic responsiveness
• Basic overall options

Taster’s Club takes pride in its atypical selections from Washington, D.C. (Buckshee Bourbon) to Iowa (Cedar Ridge) to the heart of Kentucky Bourbon Country (Bardstown Bourbon Company). “We like surprising our members with new, interesting bottles so you can try something new, expand your [palate], and maybe even discover a new favorite,” its website says. Members gain entry into the house Bottle Shop, and gift-givers are enthusiastic about how the club caters to them with personalized certificates and more.

Flavor profiles and tasting notes accompany each bottle, and the online resources are a real strength, with helpful, down-to-earth information on “how to properly taste and evaluate a bourbon,” “bourbon production techniques” and “distilleries around the U.S.” All told, it’s a simple, straightforward, no-frills club that focuses on gift-giving with options like the three-bottle gift pack.