At Blanton's, only the Special Reserve undercuts its peers

Four Blanton's are sitting here, running from $133 to better than three hundred, with the brand's middle tag around $178. Set each one against the ten bottles the model rates closest to it on flavour and the picture is lopsided. Three of the four cost more than their company. One costs a great deal more. And only the cheapest bottle of the lot comes in under its neighbours. For a label this sought-after that is about what you would expect, but it is worth seeing which bottle is the exception.

The exception is the Special Reserve. At $133 it sits about 8% under the roughly $145 its ten nearest neighbours cost, the only Blanton's on the shelf tagged below its company. It is also the gentlest of them: sweet and honeyed, citrus and soft fruit, caramel, a light spice on the finish. This is the lower-proof Blanton's, the one built for easy pouring rather than for show, and the model reads it as corn-led bourbon with a thread of rye underneath. Nothing about it is difficult. If you want the Blanton's experience without hunting the allocated bottles, this is the one the numbers point to, and it happens to be the one most people would enjoy neat on a Tuesday.

A step up and the sums invert. The Original, the familiar single barrel with the horse-and-jockey stopper, is $153 against the roughly $129 of its neighbourhood, about 19% over. It is lighter than its reputation suggests: citrus and honey, a little floral lift, sweet and easy rather than big. A good bourbon, no argument. You are simply paying a modest premium over what comparable single barrels fetch, and much of what you are paying for is the bottle on the shelf and the story behind it rather than anything extra in the glass.

The Gold Edition pushes further out. At $203 it runs about 32% over the roughly $154 its ten closest neighbours cost. This is the higher-proof, export-minded Blanton's, and it tastes like the dial has been turned up: dried fruit and citrus, honey and toffee, then tobacco and black pepper coming through late. There is genuinely more going on here than in the Original, and the extra strength carries it. Whether a third again over the neighbourhood is fair depends on how much you value the proof and the presentation, because the model sees the same corn-and-rye bones under all of it.

Then the Straight From The Barrel, where the gap stops being a quibble. It is $304 against a neighbourhood of roughly $113, about 169% over. Nearly three times what its kin fetch. This is the cask-strength bottle, bottled without cutting, and it is the richest of the four by a distance: earthy and leathery, caramel and molasses, dark chocolate, a note the reviews reach for as cake. The model loads it on rye spice and dried-fruit sweetness, and in the glass it is a serious, chewy pour. None of which explains the tag. What explains the tag is scarcity. This is an allocated bottle that trades well above list wherever it lands, and the price here is the price of getting one at all, not a verdict on the liquid.

That is the honest shape of the Blanton's shelf. One brand, four bottles, and the money going furthest on the quiet one at the bottom. The further up you go the more you are paying for the hunt, the proof and the look, and the less of the extra you can taste. I went in expecting the cask-strength bottle to be dear and found it dearer than I thought possible against its own company, while the bottle I would actually reach for turned out to be the only one priced below its peers.

So what to buy comes down to what you are after. For a Blanton's to drink, the Special Reserve at $133 is the clear call: the only one under its neighbourhood and an easy, honeyed pour that asks nothing of you. If you want the iconic bottle on the shelf and the single-barrel character that made the name, the Original at $153 is a fair-enough step up, bought with eyes open to a small premium. The Gold at $203 earns some of its extra with real intensity, so take it if proof and depth are what you are chasing. And the Straight From The Barrel at $304 is a collector's purchase first and a dram second; if that is the shelf you are building, buy it for what it is, because value is not the reason it is here.