Heaven Hill Round Table

[White Dog]

Let's talk Heaven Hill. With the PHC 2012(Beyond my expectations) and Larceny(Which I have not yet tried.) just being released, I've been thinking about this distillery quite a bit, lately. I know there are HH haters out there, which is cool, but I would like to hear from all. Why do you hate, and why do you love?

I love HH on many levels, but it's not because I love all the Whiskey.

I love that they still do Straight Corn. Darker versions of DD, along with MC are delicious, and keep this wonderfully unique American spirit alive. I'm very thankful that they do this.

I love value labels like FC, which over deliver. In Wisconsin there is no actual Heaven Hill label and no other BIBs except for Old Fitz, so I have no experience there. I do feel that EW Black is one of the best "cheap" labels going.

EC12 and EC18 are wildly inconsistent. Some I've loved, while others have been disappointing.

Some well-respected voices on this forum are also fans of EWSB, while I've found most years to be only so-so.

Old Fitz is aweful. Shame.

PHC: I've had all but the 27yr, and I've loved all but the Cognac, which I feel was good, but was not up to the greatness of the others. The latest 4-grain is stunning to me, and I've already categorized it as legendary.

RittBIB is as good a cheap Rye as there is, if a bit Bourbon like. Can't wait to try RittBIB DSP-1. I also love Pikesville. Stephen Foster and Ritt80 are just okay. I've had Ritt21 twice, which was amazing both times.

They also supply many others, and favorites of mine include Old Ezra 7, Johnny Drum Private Stock, and various Willett bottlings.

All in all, I mostly love HH for it's diversity, IMHO. Let's hope it keeps expanding on that. Yo Craig, how about a High-Rye Bourbon?

(PS: FWIW, my avatar is a series of barrel-strength EC12s that a friendly retailer allowed me to try when he was selecting a barrel. The bottle on the far left was 153.2 proof, and better than any Stagg I've ever had. The retailer agreed with me. It was jaw-dropping, drop to your knees Bourbon. When the retailer went to order the barrel, it was sadly already gone.)

[Clavius]

I like that HH isn't owned by some mega-conglomerate corporation. As for their products, some I like and others I don't.

[MyOldKyDram]

I think you've pretty well hit on their highs and lows, and i agree pretty much across the board. And besides, any additional negatives I may be able to add have been forgiven after having the PHC 2012 tonight.

[theglobalguy]

I appreciate that they're releasing products across the cost spectrum, not just ultra high-end. It takes a lot of courage to resist profits for sake of loyal customers.

I dislike the confusion within their staff. My wife works in Bardstown, called the heritage centre to find a birthday present for me. They knew less about their new products than she did (and she's by no means a bourbon lover). I would expect lack of communication and pricing confusion in a much larger company, but for a family run firm, not acceptable.

[Brisko]

I can't disagree with White Dog. I would add that they seem comitted to providing value at a fair price. Shoot, there's more diversity at their bottom end than at the top!

[sutton]

Agree with everything above - but I do have a question that has been bugging me since I tasted (and really enjoyed) Larceny: how can this same distillery end up producing the Old Fitz BiB? Same recipe, right? I would assume same barrels more or less - so it has to be in the warehouse/aging right? Or is it coming off the still/going into barrel at different proofs? (if so, stop and do what you do for Larceny and PHC!)

It seems incredible that with more aging Old Fitz could progress to Larceny and then PHC ... but I know next to nothing about whiskey production - but these products are more than a couple of orders of magnitude apart ... I'm curious as to what any of you think the explanation might be, or can we expect an improvement in Old Fitz as time goes on? HH can clearly make good/great/outstanding wheaters ...

[darylld911]

While I do like to know where my bourbon and whiskey comes from, I don't tend to like or dislike the distilleries themselves. Some of their products I think are a great value as you call out, while others I'm not impressed with or don't care for. I do love their visitor center and think that does a great job of educating folks. I spent an hour just reading the exhibits, and it was as informative as most tours.

[Young Blacksmith]

Like others, some of their products I love, others I would drink over scotch any day.

I have yet to have a bad bottle of EC, but I've only had one bottle of the 18. I seem to like anything they put out over 89 proof, but some of the EWSB's are a little watery to me. I enjoy my bottle of PHC Cognac I have, but when it's gone I won't replace it, as I think this year's product sounds far better.

For only having a few mash bills, Craig and Parker really know how to pick and age barrels to get the different profiles they produce. Possibly not being backed by a huge corporation makes them more responsive to the market? I don't know. I do know they take a licking and keep on ticking, having their distillery burn down, purchase another, and keep on producing. That could be why a huge corporation has not picked them up yet, and now I feel they are successful enough to have surpassed the stage where someone would absorb them.

They're also producing a wide range of products, not just Bourbon, which helps us. I feel it lets the Bourbon division experiment more with what they have, producing those PHC bottlings, while the Pama's and EWB's bring in the steady cash flow.

[Bmac]

I like that they have the largestamountof aging barrels than any other distillery. I think that gives them more options and more probability that they would have a higher number of "honey" barrels. I mean, they have 50+ year old bourbon still aging. Who could claim that right?

[CoMobourbon]

It's stunning to me that no one has mentioned EWB yet. In terms of what the Heaven Hill brings to the table, I think it's got to be the distillery's most important contribution to bourbon. I mean, I guess it's not very sexy, but that's kind of the whole point of it; it's pretty good/decent/ok, very cheap, completely reliable, and infinitely available. (IMHO, of course of course.) It's not very exciting, but it represents an invaluable HH service to bourbon and booze in general.

*So on second glance it appears that several people have made references to EWB. My bad. In any case, I submit that we needed a little panegyric to those $17-$20 handles.