Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	80/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
About.com
AllMusic
Robert Christgau	B+
Country Universe
Entertainment Weekly	B+
Roughstock
Slant Magazine
Taste of Country

100 Proof is the third studio album by American country music artist Kellie Pickler. It was released on January 24, 2012. The album includes the single "Tough". The title track, was released exclusively on iTunes on December 20, 2011. The album sold 27,000 copies in the first week, and is the highest-charting album of Pickler's career on the Billboard 200 and the Digital Albums chart.

Upon its release, 100 Proof received generally positive reviews from most music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 80, based on 6 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".Rolling Stone listed 100 Proof as one of the five best country albums of 2012, and called Pickler "an unlikely trad-country heroine. But 100 Proof may be the best traditionalist album of the year. Pickler wraps her big, lustrous voice around old-fashioned honky tonk, rollicking road stories and big ballads, all produced with a perfect balance of throwback twang and contemporary sheen."

Stephen Thomas Erlewine with AllMusic gave it a four star rating, calling it "potent and straight, [it] hits harder than anything she's done before. [...] 100 Proof is the album where Kellie Pickler stops being a TV star and turns into a genuine recording artist: it's an album that's not just good when graded on a curve, but good by any measure. Rating it three stars out of five, Country Weekly writer Jessica Nicholson said that "it's clear that the American Idol alum has matured". She also praised Pickler's performance on "Tough" and "Unlock That Honky Tonk", and thought that the production was more traditional-sounding than mainstream country.Taste of Country's Billy Dukes rated the album four stars, and affirmed that with respect to this album "she should (and is) proud of, but almost more exciting is how this underestimated singer will slink into the traditional country genre on the next album and the one after that, and the one after that", which this "Kellie Pickler 2.0 is an upgrade that will make her a viable star for years to come." At Entertainment Weekly, Ray Rahman graded the album a B+, and found that "Proof is her meatiest, most adventurous output yet." In addition, MSN Music's Robert Christgau graded it a B+, and prefaced that "American Idol haunts this artistic breakthrough, a sense that she'll always sing what she's told no matter how many composition credits she bags", which she got six, "but if making nice comes all too naturally, the ones about the daughter she doesn't have and the father she was stuck with say that love is something she's willing to tough out."

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