I first tasted Heaven Hill Bottled In Bond in a small bar in Akron, Ohio. I had been having a good chat with the bartender, who mentioned that they had just cracked open a new bottle of whiskey — and it was only one of two allocated to the entire state. Being offered to a glass, and I felt duty bound to give it a try… but didn’t actually find it remarkable. So when I walked into my Chicago corner store a few weeks later and saw that same bottle sitting on the shelf I immediately grabbed it. I had to know: was the Ohio State Liquor Agency creating a rare product via scarcity, or simply saving the tastebuds of Ohio bourbon lovers?
History
Established in 1935, shortly after the end of prohibition, Old Heavenhill Springs Distillery was founded by a group of investors in Bardstown, Kentucky. They were gambling on the idea that alcohol production would be a booming business and invested heavily in being one of the first companies to stand up and service that market. One of those investors was well known distiller Joseph L. Beam (first cousin to Jim Beam) who would also become the first master distiller of the facility.
As the years went on, the five Shapira brothers bought out all of the other investors to become the sole owner of the business and changed the name to Heaven Hill Distillery (which was a typo on the paperwork from the original Heavenhill distillery). Despite being bought out, the descendants of Joseph Beam remain the master distillers of the facility to this day.
Their primary distilling facility burned down in 1996, destroying 90,000 barrels of whiskey and lighting the creek that feeds the distillery on fire for nearly two miles downstream. According to our tour guide when I visited, the fire melted five fire trucks and burned for nearly four days. (Of course, the tour guide also said that “the truth is agreed upon fiction”… so take that last fact as you will.)
The business survived and they purchased a new distillery in Bernheim from Diageo in 1999 where production now takes place, but all aging still takes place at the original Bardstown facility.
The 1935 bet has paid off – big time. Heaven Hill Distillery is currently the biggest family-owned distillery in the United States and the second largest holder of bourbon whiskey inventory in the world. Their flagship brands include Deep Eddy vodka and Elijah Craig, and their facility hosts the annual Kentucky Bourbon Festival.
Product
- Learn More: What Is Bourbon Whiskey?
A “bottled in bond” whiskey has quite possibly the strictest requirements around it to bear that label, and for good reason. I’m sure you’ve heard of the old trope that moonshine will make you go blind (or some similar story) — well, back in the late 1800’s, that could very well be correct. There was a lot of adulterated bourbon being sold, including bourbon that was flavored or colored with iodine, tobacco, or other unsavory elements. A group of distillers led by Colonel Edmond Haynes Taylor, Jr (commonly now known as a taupe and yellow cardboard tube containing his namesake bourbon, Colonel E.H. Taylor, Jr) pressured the US government to pass the Bottled-In-Bond Act of 1897, and the bottle we have here today was prepared following those requirements.
“Bottled in bond” bourbon starts with the same fundamental concept as a generic bourbon (being at least 51% corn based), and as a “straight” bourbon it also needs to meet specific alcohol content requirements at different points in its production. However, as a “bottled in bond” straight bourbon, what makes it different is the strict government oversight of the production process and the fact that once distilled it must sit in a government inspected and monitored warehouse for a minimum of four years (two years longer than a normal “straight” bourbon). This was done for two reasons: it allowed distillers to delay the payment of taxes on the whiskey until it was bottled, and more importantly it provided the consumer a guarantee that the product being purchased was not altered.
In this case, the namesake Heaven Hill moves away from the the standard Heaven Hill mashbill and uses one that consists of 78% corn, 10% rye, and 12% malted barley. With the higher corn and lower rye content, I expect this bourbon to be sweeter and have less of the harsher rye notes. That all gets mashed, fermented, and distilled in the Heaven Hill distillery in Bardstown before then being placed into new charred oak barrels for a period of ten years, in a government bonded and monitored rickhouse before being bottled at 100 proof (50% ABV) and shipped out the door.
Packaging
For as big of a brand portfolio as Heaven Hill has, you would think they might consider a more creative bottle for their namesake product. This is simply boring.
The shape of the bottle reminds me of what we’ve seen in the recent reviews of Mad River Distillers. It’s standard bottle design for modern distilleries: cylindrical body, rounded shoulder, medium length neck, and capped with a wood and cork stopper. It’s a design we see commonly from many independent distilleries, since it’s difficult and expensive to get custom made glass bottles — however, we are not talking about an independent distillery here. Heaven Hill is huge distillery (where the accountants apparently make the artistic decisions on bottling).
The other thing that Heaven Hill got wrong where Mad River got it right is the size of the label — a good 80% of the glass here is covered by a label. Yes, I know there are requirements needed to meet the Bottle in Bond labeling standard, but do we really need a huge artistic rendering of the rickhouses in Bardstown? If there is one thing I learned when visiting Kentucky, it’s that once you see the outside of one rickhouse you’ve seen them all – it’s what is inside that matters.
Neat
The most surprising aroma coming off of this bourbon to me is a funky yeast smell that reminds me of smelling a Saison beer. Beneath the funk are notes of sour apple, cherry, and a very pleasant freshly baked bread.
Fortunately, that funkiness only exists on the nose — it does not directly translate to the flavor of the bourbon. I get notes of cherry, apple, cinnamon, and allspice at the beginning of my sip, and those give way to a very sweet middle of caramel and chocolate. The experience finishes with oak, tobacco, and rye bread. I wouldn’t say that there’s a harsh alcohol burn here, but it isn’t exactly buttery smooth either. It’s all pretty typical for an American bourbon.
As the flavors change, they seem to do so in a herky-jerky way. It’s like those groups of flavors have formed gangs and they are all fighting for attention. It’s not bad… but it’s not good. It’s just a strange flavor pairing where you like them all independently, but when you put them together they just do not create magic.
On Ice
The ice helps a lot to help the flavors play nicely together. After adding a big cube, this bourbon has much less of a chaotic flavor profile.
You still get the sour apple, cinnamon, and spices, but they blend so much more nicely with the middle flavors of caramel and chocolate. I like that the ice also seems to bring out more of the oak on the finish – it’s much more bold here.
So ice helps the flavors blend together… but at a cost: bitterness. There is a start-to-finish bitterness that starts to build from mild to much more intense at the end. This is great if you tend to like bitter things (black coffee, IPA beer, or Malort) — but an unwelcome surprise if you were looking for an easy drinking bourbon you just tried neat.
This is the second Heaven Hill BIB product (Henry McKenna Single Barrel BIB) where adding ice seemed to open up a cabinet of bitterness. Not sure what is going on in Bardstown, but it’s generating some strange results.
Cocktail (Old Fashioned)
I love a good old fashioned, but an old fashioned with Heaven Hill Bottled In Bond is surprisingly bland. It tastes… hollow, if hollow were a flavor. To quote Bilbo Baggins: “like butter that has been scraped over too much bread“.
I know I poured bourbon in there — I watched myself make it. However, it’s not even noticeable in the cocktail, and the only hint of the bourbon are some mild fruity notes (apple and cherry, specifically). The cocktail mostly tastes like bitters, sugar, and orange peel — all of the other flavors got washed out.
Fizz (Mule)
We are going three for three of Heaven Hill bourbons and mediocre Kentucky mules. As I started to type out my notes for the mule, I cross referenced my past reviews and realized it had ended up nearly being word-for-word the same notes as I’d had for Henry McKenna.
In order to make a good Kentucky Mule, a bourbon doesn’t have to be great – it just has to have enough depth of flavor to stand up to the ginger beer. And in this case, the resulting cocktail is definitely a failure on that front. It’s mostly bitter (unsurprisingly), and there isn’t any other flavor of note besides ginger. The bourbon is all but lost and there is no balance and no complexity.
As I mused earlier, I am not sure what is going on in Bardstown, KY… but it’s not great.
Overall Rating
This is a very disappointing bourbon. It was mediocre neat and on the rocks, and abysmal in cocktails. The more I dig into the Heaven Hill portfolio, the more convinced I am that they are focused on quantity over quality.
Heaven Hill might be one of our most reviewed portfolios with 24 reviews to date, with ratings ranging from 5- to 1-star. And of all of their products, I would have assumed that care would have been taken with the namesake bottle… but Heaven Hill Bottled In Bond is not great. Save $30 and pick up a bottle of a more highly rated and less expensive offering.
| Heaven Hill Bottled In Bond Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey Production Location: Kentucky, United States Classification: Straight Bourbon Whiskey Special Type: Bottled In Bond Aging: 7 Years Proof: 50% ABV Price: $59.99 / 750 ml Overall Rating:   |
Overall Rating: 2/5
Very mediocre for Heaven Hill’s namesake bottled in bond bourbon