Heaven Hill Old Style Bourbon BIB

[kickert]

A friend of mine was doing some bourbon shopping and gave me a call from the liquor store. He asked what he should get for under $15. I told him anything with "Bond" on the label would be worth trying. He brought home something I had never seen before. It was Heaven Hill Old Style Bourbon and it was Bottled in Bond. The only bonded HH I have ever seen comes with the green label, but this has a white one. I did some searching and I could find references to the Old Style (80 or 90 proof) and to the HH BIB, but have never heard of the Old Style with that designation.

Have you all come across this before? How does it compare to the green label HH BIB?

By the way, I was not impressed with this at all (I actually felt bad because my friend bought it on my recommendation). I pick up a grass smell on the nose and the flavors are very muted. It mixed fine with coke, but even after a spash of water and then some ice, I found it would be very hard to drink on its own.

[Gillman]

It is known here, yes, it is 10 years old (although a rare younger version, still with the buff label, I think 8 years old, was spotted by sharp eyes out on the West Coast). I assume yours is the 10 years old. It is good whiskey for the money. I think the grassy smell is that of the mash cereals, this expression seems to contain whiskey which takes longer to mature. It tastes good neat though to some. I like it mainly for blending experiments, it adds body and zest to a blend, say, which contains wheat-recipe whiskeys.

Gary

[barturtle]

There are a number of HH Bonds on the shelf, I have a picture of three of them here. I need to get around to doing a comparison sometime...

[kickert]

The one is question is a 6 year old bourbon. It is actually identical to the middle bottle barturle posted.

[Gillman]

Ah, I read white for buff. Yes, this version of course is 4 years younger than the one I mentioned, quite young and feisty. Good whiskey for mixing of any kind and cocktails.

Gary

[kickert]

This bottle claims to be "charcoal filtered." How is this different than Jack Daniel's process. I ask because Jack can't call itself bourbon, but HH BIB still does.

[bluesbassdad]

This bottle claims to be "charcoal filtered." How is this different than Jack Daniel's process. I ask because Jack can't call itself bourbon, but HH BIB still does.

An Advanced Search for posts about "charcoal" by user "Boone" brought up several hits, including one in this thread, which I think is on point. (All of Bettye Jo's posts are worth reading. :grin: )

Yours truly,

Dave Morefield

[cowdery]

They put the word "charcoal" on the label mainly to confuse you. Yes, it touches a little charcoal due to filtering that almost everybody does right before bottling, but it's not the same as the Daniel's process.

Bourbons sold under the Heaven Hill brand name come in about a zillion different labels. Their sales guys go to distributors with a big book and let them pick the label they like, so the distributor gets something a little bit exclusive. So it's hard to parse green label or black label or white label, as the color and the words and everything else can vary from market to market.

But a 10-year-old HH bond for under $15 is a great deal and you should buy it.