W.L. Weller is a wheated bourbon originally created by the Stitzel-Weller Distilling Company. The brand is named after William Larue Weller, a distiller who is credited by some as being the first to use wheat as the secondary grain in straight bourbon as opposed to the more commonly used rye.

Notably, William Larue Weller hired the famous Julian Van Winkle, who would later be known as “Pappy.” Van Winkle began his career working for Weller. Weller passed in 1899, and coincidentally his company, W.L. Weller & Sons, later merged with the A. Ph. Stitzel Distillery which was owned by his former employee, Julian “Pappy” Van Winkle. The companies worked together through Prohibition operating under a medicinal license, and eventually became the Stitzel-Weller Distilling Company in 1935.

W.L. Weller Special Reserve is considered the most “common” of the W.L. Weller lineup, and is one of the three bottles that were, at one time, released on an ongoing basis and commonly seen on liquor store shelves - this also included W.L. Weller Antique 107 and W.L. Weller 12 Year. They were joined by the less common William Larue Weller, which is part of the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection and released annually each year. In December 2016 the three ongoing releases underwent a label redesign. The lineup expanded in 2018 with the addition of W.L. Weller C.Y.P.B. (short for Craft Your Perfect Bourbon), and then again in 2019 with the addition of W.L. Weller Full Proof. They were most recently joined by W.L. Weller Single Barrel.