The Noble Dram | I'm in Heaven Hill (Season 2 | Ep. 9)

This week on The Noble Dram, we’re cracking open some serious Heaven Hill goodness. Aaron brings out the elegant Old Fitzgerald Bottled-in-Bond 7 Year, while Gavin comes in swinging with Heaven Hill Grain to Glass 2025.

From rich history and legendary bottles to hot takes and whiskey chaos, we're exploring the distillery that quietly built a bourbon empire.

One pour brings polished decanter class.One pour brings grain-to-glass craftsmanship.
Pour a dram and join us.

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Transcript

Gavin 0:00

Their distilleries that you know because their names are really large on the label. But did you know that those same distilleries make a wide array of brands that you also love? Tonight on the Noble Drain, we are talking Heaven Hill Distillery. The industry's quiet over a tear.

Aaron 1:01

This sounds like a heavenly topic. It does. It does. We're gonna climb that hill. I'm done with this. We're not doing any more of that.

unknown 1:09

All right.

Aaron 1:10

We're wanting to focus specifically on products made at Heaven Hill, and I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised by what all this entails. So without further ado, Gavin, let's pour some whiskey. Should we get to the whiskey? Uh let me guess. Where is the first bottle from?

Gavin 1:35

Kentucky?

Aaron 1:36

I'm going with Heaven Hill. That's funny with Heaven Hill.

Gavin 1:39

Well, that's a final answer. That's a damn good guess, my friend, because we are starting with Heaven Hill. All right, perfect. And it look at this bottle. I mean, this is a fantastic bottle. It's a butte. Isn't it Clark? And I don't know how y'all handle uh opening bottles, but what happens? Oh, it drives me nuts. Well, I mean, uh, my OCD kicks in.

Aaron 2:03

I get a little we might just have to leave this here. Um, just for my I love all you don't have to pour all of it into the glass. It's okay. You poured it all over the table, too. Good God. Jesus. You poured three glasses in there.

Gavin 2:21

All right. Just for you. Because I know how much you love heavenly pour.

Aaron 2:28

You got it everywhere. Poured that. I'm gonna show you later. Later, when I do my bottle, I'll I'll show you how to not do it. It's literally a puddle. Good lord.

Gavin 2:39

Somebody needs to teach somebody how to pour it.

Aaron 2:42

Put it this way so everybody can see it at home. It's nice and pretty. Everyone loves it. It is. Yeah, we you said to start the episode, you know some distilleries because their name's great big on the bottle. This one does exactly that. Case in point. All right, but tell us what the rest of the label says, Baby.

Gavin 3:00

I know. We've made it two words. Heaven hill. Yeah. It's also grain to glass. Chinkapen weeded bourbon. Okay.

Aaron 3:12

So do you know what chinkapen is? Well, so the way in which you presented it, slightly misleading, I'll say. Because I do know, I do know this. Um chinkapen is a type of oak. But you said chinkapin weeded as if somehow it was a fancy kind of wheat trying to throw me off. And I gotcha.

Gavin 3:34

Nope. So chinkapen is a kind of oak, just like you mentioned. So this bottle or this release was all aged in chinkapin oak barrels. Okay, so not finished, but fully aged in chinkapin barrel. That's right. We do not have an age statement big on the label, but they did have a distilled date and a um release date. So you can kind of uh marry the two, do some math, carry the one.

Aaron 4:05

Just exactly what I was gonna say.

Gavin 4:07

Or the zero. And we're sitting at seven years here.

Aaron 4:10

Seven years. Seven years. So heavenhill, grain to glass, seven-year-old weeded bourbon, aged in chicken oak.

Gavin 4:20

We do know the mash bill. Okay, mash bill, 52% corn, 35% wheat. There's your weeder, okay, and 13% malted barley. Oh, that's where you would bathe in nectar of the gods right there. You know, it kind of reminds me of was it duck tails when they dive in.

Aaron 4:40

Scrooge McDuck. Yeah, dive into the gold vault. Yeah, yeah. I feel like swimming coins.

Gavin 4:46

Swim in malted barley. Oh my god.

Aaron 4:48

That would be so fun. Yeah. Um yeah, no, I would do that. Like, have you like go into distilleries? Like the malting floor where they got all the malt laid out and just kind of roll around it. I wanted to put my hand in it and just kind of. I wonder if it would make my the whiskey taste funny to have me roll around in the malt. It would yeah, yeah. Little McGee. It doesn't sound sanitary.

Gavin 5:08

Let's just put it that way. All right. We are also clocking in at 105 proof.

Aaron 5:14

Ooh. I'll be honest, uh initially on the nose, I'd have guessed higher than that. Um, that that's it's got some spice to it. Oh, it does. So now, now, if my memory serves right, these are annual releases of their grain to glass. Right. So, what which year is this one? 2025. Okay.

Gavin 5:36

A little nugget for those keeping score at home. A little nugget of knowledge of chinkapan. One of the big differences between American oak and chinkapan oak is chinkapan is more porous and softer. So, what that does with the whiskey inside the barrel is it allows it to go deeper into the staves or into the wood. And so you get more, I'm not gonna tease you with some of those flavors, but there's a little bit more vanilla that might come out. Okay. And there's a deeper, richer, kind of thicker uh whiskey that might show up. Not to lead you into it.

Aaron 6:21

Yeah, I mean I think we all as Scotch drinkers, right, we've we've picked up on the differences between American oak and European oak, right? Um, we're now seeing, especially with the use of finishing barrels, whether it be chinkapen or French oak or guriana or Mizzanura oaks, like all these different kinds of regional oak varieties, um, that slightly impart flavors, just a little bit different, right? Whether you're getting a little bit more sweetness or a little more vanilla or a little more spice, right? Kind of varies. So I'm I'm intrigued to delve into this because I don't I don't know that I've ever had a chinkapin aged whiskey before. Like I think this one's a new one for me.

Gavin 7:10

There's there's a scotch um from uh the Isle of Rasse. Do they do they use chinkapin? Yeah, is it finished in it or is it aged in it, though? I honestly we'll have to figure that one out. I'm gonna leave, I'm gonna tease it a little bit. You you like very shallow rabbit holes on this one. You did not go very far. No, I've I've had the Isle of Rasse, uh, but I haven't delved into it quite so much. I can't tell if you like the whiskey or just love saying the name.

Aaron 7:45

Maybe both. It's a little bit of both. Maybe both. I love the whiskey. I wish there was a way to roll part of Heaven Hill now, but there isn't. Heaven Hill. It's hard to roll the hells. It sounds stupid.

Gavin 7:58

We're gonna cut that out. We're probably gonna leave it. Literally, stop doing it right now. Uh so I think I need a little bit. I know what you want. I know what you want. Can you give me a little nuggets of knowledge? I know what you want. You want Professor Aaron. I want, I want, I want you to come back out in your cap and gown.

Aaron 8:20

To talk about to talk about Heaven Hill, right? Because we're gonna if we're gonna focus on the distillery, you'd be remiss to not talk a little bit about the distillery's history, right? So um Heaven Hill began in 1934. It was actually five guys, not the burger, not the burger guys, not the burger guys. Although they make make they may make a very tasty burger too. I don't know that. Um, but it was five brothers, um, the Shapira family. Um, they had gotten, I don't know if suckered is the right word, but they had joined up with some other investors and decided they were going to start a distillery. And so they started what was known as the Heaven Hill, sorry, the old Heavenhill Spring Distillery, named after a gentleman by the name of William Heavenhill. Did you know this? I did not know that. Yeah, the he owned the farm where they built the original distillery. That was why it was the Heavenhill Distillery. Was it one word? It was one word. The name Heavenhill was one word. I'm looking at your hat. Yeah, no, that they totally marketed it differently. It's the old Heaven Hill Spring Distillery, but no, it was named after William Heavenhill. Was it on a hill? I uh assume so. I've never been I did not delve into the topographical maps of Bardstown, Kentucky when I started. No, so so these guys started their distillery in Bardstown, and the very first thing they did is they said, we need people who know how to make a distillery, right? So they actually partnered with Joe and Harry Bean. Horn. Like the bean. The beans? The beams. Okay, the bean family, right? Not bean, bean. Yeah, not not Mr. Bean, the mute comedian guy from England. Not that one. Different guy. Okay, all right. Um, so first barrels began rolling off the line at the end of 1935, right? So four years later, they release the very first Old Heaven Hill bottled and bond, and it rapidly took off. I mean, everybody loved it. It quickly became the number one sold bourbon in Kentucky. Yeah. So I figure if you're new to the game and you come out of the gates that hot, that's a pretty good sign, right? Old Heaven Hill. Old Heaven Hill bottled and bonded. Right? Okay, you can still get bottles of Heaven Hill bottled and bond. It's probably the most common Heaven Hill bottling that you find, right? Um, tan and blue label. Actually, a very tasty whiskey, right? Oh, very good. I understand why it was so highly rated. So the connection to the Beam family did not start stop with the initial uh creation of the distillery. They end up hiring Earl Beam to be their master distiller. So he's a master distiller from like 1946 to like 1975, at which point he turned over the reins to yet another beam, his son Parker Beam. Um, and so you can see there's a lot of incestuous overlap, if you will, in the Kentucky uh bourbon scene.

Gavin 11:58

I mean, can you imagine going to like family functions and just everyone sitting around drinking whiskey, talking about whatever distilleries they're working at?

Aaron 12:10

I just assume you become the master distiller at some place, and you're like, we don't drink anybody else's swill anymore, but it's made by your brother or your uncle or your dad. Like that could be that could be problematic at the Thanksgiving Day table, right? Like, hey, we're having whiskey. It was like, we're not drinking your crap, we're drinking my stuff, right? All right, so in the history of Heaven Hill, though, there is a day that lives in infamy. It's probably the thing that if you know anything about Heaven Hill, you know about November 7th, 1996. So that afternoon, storm running through town, what they now believe to have been a lightning strike starts a fire in Rick House number one. By the time they realize it and go to do something about it and evacuate the facility to get people away and fight the fire, it's too late. Winds have picked up in the midst of the storm, and when it's all said and done, barrels have exploded because of the rising temperatures and built-up pressure until they erupt. At which point, the now well above 100-proof whiskey that was in those barrels spews out into the flames, only making the flames worse. At its biggest moment, they said a river of burning bourbon running down the hillside and into the creek. Um, absolute chaos rains. When it's done, almost 92,000 barrels and seven of the rick houses, including the actual distillery, how are all gone? Holy estimated 30 million dollars of inventory is gone. This is like 15% of all of Heaven Hill's product that they have aging is gone in one evening. Um, so needless to say, it's a kick in the shin. I mean, you've got flammable liquid stored in flammable containers stacked in flammable buildings. Cannot see when no one saw this coming, right? I I'm with you. I'm with you. As a as an engineer who studies building systems and stuff, um, the NFPA has very strict rules about how you store flammable things and what kind of fire suppressant system you keep in them. Um, evidently 1996 was a different time and place, right?

Gavin 14:57

I mean, I so as somebody who in my family history, my family farm burnt down in uh 1994 uh time frame. So I can only imagine the chaos that happened at that point.

Aaron 15:15

Yeah, I I mean the idea of running over with a fire hose, trying to spray on it, and the liquid coming back at you is alcohol on fire, which is so hard to put out without just smothering it. And it's just running down the hill at you. You're like, yeah, never mind. Never mind. I'm getting in the truck, I'm going home. Like I'm done with this.

Gavin 15:36

So your statistic that 90 some 92,000 barrels. So I think something that I found is like something like 2% of all bourbon in Kentucky? Yeah, yeah.

Aaron 15:54

I didn't I didn't know the number, but I knew they had said it was a it was a big enough impact that it actually impacted the the bourbon supply in Kentucky, yeah, which is mind-boggling to me. That is crazy. Um, so I every dark storm, every dark cloud has a silver lining. So rummaging through the rubble, they find the refrigerator that had been on the fifth floor of the distillery in amongst the charred remains of the distillery. And in it they open up, and the yeast that they have had this string cultivating since the distillery opened in 1934. So this is now 62 years later, right? Still using the same yeast, it has made it through the fire and is still alive because it was protected in an insulated refrigerated box. Oh man. Um, and makes it through. And in an absolute testament to kind of what the whiskey industry is, several distilleries reach out and say, Hey, what can we do to help? And they again turn to the beams and say, Can you help us produce whiskey? So Heaven Hill Distillery actually produced their whiskey at the beam distillery using their own yeast, their own recipe, right, to create new make product to begin to replenish the stuff that was lost in the fire. They essentially poured it forward. Yeah, no, it was I mean an absolute testament, right? In most business models, when your competitor is down, you kick dirt on them to try to keep them from ever getting back up, right? And in this instance, when their competitor was down, they reached out a hand and said, What can we do to help build you back up? And I think that's an absolute testament too. Love that. And you hear this a lot when you talk to different distilleries that, yeah, um, so and so was they were upgrading their distillery and they got a bigger size, and so they didn't have any need for the equipment, so they gave it to us, or they um they've got old barrels that they didn't know what to do with, and so they were giving them to us to help us start out. I all of those kinds of stories you hear over and over and over again um throughout both both brewing and distilling. And I think it's just a testament to the the individuals that that have put their life into into this industry.

Gavin 18:35

I mean the camaraderie, the the brotherhood, the sisterhood, the just the familial aspect and why we do even do what we do, right? And and sitting on the back patio and hanging out and um champing each other on and loving on each other, all of those things. Like I I love that aspect of this industry, and even doing what we do right here. Like it's that's what it's all about, you know. So uh just gotta say thank you to the Bain family and other distillers for we wouldn't have it if we may not have had this, yeah.

Aaron 19:13

So obviously, 96 is a tough year, right? The end of the end of the year with this major problem, and now they have no place to make stuff, and so they're trying to figure out what to do. Are they gonna build a distillery? What's gonna happen? And uh a group called the United Distillers comes to them and says, We're thinking about selling the Bernheim distillery, and they say, Man, that's perfect. We would love, we would love to have that. So they go buy the Bernheim distillery, which has like three or four times the production capacity that Heaven Hill had previously. And being Heaven Hill, they immediately go get some of the Beam family and like, hey, help us figure out what we need to change at the Bernheim distillery to get it to produce what we were used to producing. So they went in, redid everything, all that stuff, got it all freshened up for them to use. And so they began producing there in 1999. That's when that all went down. So for three years, two plus, um, they had distilled somewhere else, uh, just helping things out. But what it meant was they moved from Barnstown away, right? Because that's not where the Bernheim distillery is. And so they were always wanting to go home, right? And so as one does. In 2022, they announced and broke ground on a new distillery um back in Barnstown, and with it, it again significant increase in capacity in production, and they have actually designed it such that future expansions can happen. Um, so right now, we mentioned it earlier, they are the largest independently owned bourbon producer in the country, right? Or in the world, right? Because you can't make bourbon anywhere else, so that works out well. With full capacity of their new distillery and the Burnheim distillery. This is not where they're running today, but if they get to full capacity in both, they would be producing a million barrels a year.

Gavin 21:28

I just want to see a million dollars or million barrels in a million dollars.

Aaron 21:35

I've seen it. You can you can go to the binion in Vegas, right? Like they've got it. It's it's not as impressive as having a million dollars. I'll put it that way. Um, yeah, we were talking about this the other day at work, and I was like, oh yeah, making a million dollars, I think, is really not that much. Like we ran the math. If you work from age 20, 25 to 65, a million dollars is like 20 something thousand dollars. A year. It's easy to make a million dollars. The problem is you spend too much of it, right? Having a million dollars is a whole different animal. Spend a lot on whiskey. Yes. No, you all but like have a habit like this, and you end up in trouble.

Gavin 22:17

One or two worse habits, let's just be honest.

Aaron 22:19

Yeah, I can think of three right now, but the rest of them. I want to talk a little bit about the whiskey because I want to keep us on basic.

Gavin 22:27

Yeah.

Aaron 22:27

So my model, I'm gonna ask you more questions. No, no. So it's right on the nose, it's spicy, right? Um I I I kind of hinted at it earlier. You said 105 proof. I thought it sips like it's hotter than that. Um I'll say there's a like a vanilla custardy, creamy kind of uh aroma to the nose. I want the spice, I think is the proof. I want there to be like cinnamon and other stuff. Like the the color of the bottle. Like everything screams I should have tons of baking spice, but I don't get a lot of baking spice. It's much creamier and softer on the nose from a spice level.

Gavin 23:13

I on the nose put um, I think there's a roasted nuttiness to it, like a roasted peanut that I got on the nose. Um is that because all the beam influence? Yeah, maybe, maybe that's part of it. Uh, there's a cereal, I think. No, yep, like a um, you know, 13% multi barley, so you might get a little bit of that um in it. And then my favorite thing, cola. There's a bit of cola on the nose.

Aaron 23:47

Man, it's amazing to me how often what you say on nose palette or finish, I pick up on a different aspect and not at that point. All right. Because I distinctly get the spicier side of cola on the finish. Okay, but I didn't get that on the nose. All right. You mentioned you mentioned you mentioned peanuts. I I kind of get a nuttiness. I don't know as if I'd have said peanuts. Um, but I'll say it's soft in there. But on the palate, how do you feel on the palate? On the palate, I actually thought it was pretty sweet. Wow. Um the spice and the bold flavors and stuff all come roaring back when you get to the finish. But on the on the palate itself, I thought it was actually pretty soft and subtle.

Gavin 24:40

Maybe subtle's not the right way to word it, but I put um sweet. I mean, there's sweet all over the all over this um glass. Uh I put uh the I mean there's some chocolate notes to it. There's some honey. Like almost um almost like a roasted honey, right? Like like almost if you put like a frosted flake, so you get that that cereal note, and but then you put a little honey on it. Okay, and it's kind of where my head went on the on the palate.

Aaron 25:15

Yeah, I'd I mean, I think there's a there's obviously a corn flavor, right? Um, you say frosted flakes, like corn flakes. I I get that. Um when you said sweet, my my head immediately went towards like king's Hawaiian rolls. Okay. All right, it's got that kind of bready flour kind of thing that I think the wheat's carrying it, but it but it's got enough sweetness to it off the corn that I think it's got a bit of that dessert roll. Um I I went to a church for years and that's what they served at communion. My kids just love that. Like that was like their favorite thing was to get to go have Hawaiian rolls uh on a Sunday morning.

Gavin 26:02

Um Hawaiian rolls. Do you like yours kind of baked a little bit further? Like warmed up, or do you like them out of the package?

Aaron 26:13

I'll be honest, King's Hawaiian rolls is not a common thing I eat just on their own. But if you're making like sliders, um, whether it's a burger slider or like a lunch meat slider, like a hot ham and cheese slider with like the butter and stuff over the oh, that little crunchy bit around the edges where it's gotten heated up. I got that, yeah, absolutely. So I yes, I like a hot Hawaiian roll better than a room temperature.

Gavin 26:45

Right on, right on. I I feel the same way on the Hawaiian rolls uh in college. I mean, I felt like I ate a ton of those. Um and I never warmed them up, and then we started doing them. I like Thanksgiving's and those things, like warming those suckers up. Those with some mashed potatoes and gravy, and three of my favorite foods right there. All right, um, so we talked a bit about uh the palate. Do you feel like it's tracking on the finish? Because I felt like on your nose and your palate, you you said some I think a couple different things.

Aaron 27:28

I think the finish is where it turns spicier, right? I get a cinnamon, I get a cola, right? There. Um, and then as soon as you get this big kind of punch of spice and flavor, it immediately dries on the palate, and then I get this kind of soft oakiness that fades out. Um, I would put the finish at relatively medium, right? I don't think it lingers real long. Um it's not abrupt short, and but medium seems like a fair number or a fair time frame. But yeah, I I think it's I think it's spicy um and bold flavored up front. Um, I think you got a little bit of that baking spice, that cola kind of thing going on. And then that fades into a drying oakiness. And then I think just from having swirled it around a lot, trying to really kind of explore the palette. I think I've got that kind of tingle on the tongue that runs a tingler. I think that's mostly just proof talking um at that point. So yeah.

Gavin 28:34

On the finish, I I put long, but I going back to it after you said more of a medium, I would agree with that actually. Um, it was because I was right. I mean, I get it. I hate to disagree with you, but um I think there's a bit of that peppery uh finish. There's a instead of like just straight nuttiness, um originally I was thinking um almost like a peanut butter nuttiness, but I think and and I and I do agree think this that a peanut butter is different than a roasted peanut. I think there's inherently obviously a different a different uh one's creamier, yeah. Right. It's a different medium, one's one's buttery, right? Thank you. Uh this one's got more of a roasted nut to it on the finish, I felt like. Um yeah, yeah. I I I I I see where you're going with that. Yeah. Uh and then I I do feel like although it was a medium lasting finish, I think it ends with a sweetness. I think that's the last thing on my palette is like just a nice gentle sweetness. Okay.

Aaron 29:56

Are you ready to put a number to it? I already did. I already wrote my number down too. I f I'm I'm feeling pretty good because I was way ahead on this one. I think you're wrong, but let's go for it. All right. Um, I'm giving this an 84. Oh, okay. I I like this in the fact that um, one, it's it's a fun bottle to put on the shelf. Uh, I think it it presents well. It's something atypical when somebody comes over and says, I like weeded stuff. The normal thought is weeded means soft, soft flavors, soft, um, smooth, easy sipping. This has got a lot of kind of bold spice to it, especially on the finish. But I think maybe part of that is the proof, but right. Um, I think this sets itself apart from other weeded bourbons in that regard. Um, but I I think it's very tasty. I will say you didn't mention MSRP. I didn't. But I bought that bottle, so I know how much I paid for it, and it probably hurts its score just a little bit.

Gavin 31:01

What I didn't tell you is I actually also have this bottle on my shelf.

Aaron 31:04

Oh, you did?

Gavin 31:05

Yeah. So you just opened mine?

Aaron 31:08

Sorry. Yeah, I need to move some whiskey out of this room.

Gavin 31:11

It's quite okay. Uh, so yeah, I think I paid right around 130.

Aaron 31:18

I I think 130 is the price that you see it at. Um, I was I was in a store just the other day. They had their standard bourbon at close to 100 bucks, but it was one of the big box discount stores, uh Costco Sam's Club, something like that. Um, and so I'm expecting that to be a little cheaper than you can find it most everywhere else. But yeah, I think 130 was about what those were running here here in Houston at least.

Gavin 31:44

Yeah, it's about what I paid for it. All right, but what number did you give it? But not I don't think I have maybe not 2025, but um I gave it a 90. Okay, I really liked it.

Aaron 31:57

Again, I think if this had been a $70 bottle, I think this is probably an 86 for me. I don't think I think the price point was on I yeah. I stop and think about all the other weeded whiskies you drink. This is the most expensive weeded whiskey I have, and I don't mean the overpriced weller prices, right? I mean like real prices. Um Old Elk is in that kind of hundred dollar range. This is still more expensive than that, right? Um, and so yeah, that's that to me that that hurt it. I pricing aside, I'd have been higher.

Gavin 32:39

I mean, I I didn't take pricing quite as serious in it, um, but it's obviously a fair, it's a fair metric to to for for the grade, right? I think this one, I I love weeders. I I'm a sweets kind of guy. Uh I love all the sweetness I got on it. I'm a peanut butter kind of guy, so I love that nuttiness, peanut buttery, roasted peanuts that I got on it throughout the the the nose, the palate, the finish. Um, it is a fun bottle to have on the shelf. It's it's something when I bought this bottle. Um I took a flyer on it. It was allocated-ish. Right? Like, I don't know if it's necessarily the previous year's release had gotten huge accolades, yeah, and I had missed a chance to get it.

Aaron 33:36

And so when this came off, I was like, all right, I'll take a flyer on it for that reason, right? Um, and I'm not disappointed in having the bottle, right? 84 is an absolutely in the put it on the shelf.

Gavin 33:48

This to me, if you get if you could get your hands on it, all right. Go get it.

Aaron 33:52

Yeah, tasty one for sure. Yeah, all right. Totals 90. 90 for Gavin, 84 for Aaron. Um, this would be the time where we normally do a commercial.

Gavin 34:04

Do we want to do a commercial? I think we should.

Aaron 34:07

Uh no, I don't want to do a commercial. You don't want we're forging right through because we want to make sure you get the most noble drink possible. All right, so what we talked about to start the episode. Yeah. Was that tell us? You know, Heaven Hill makes this one because it's great big on the bottle. But they also make a bunch of other brands you may or may not have known about, right? So obviously Heaven Hill, probably another one that a lot of people know of as Heaven Hill, is the Henry McKenna, another bottle limb release. We talked about the fact that they are they bought the Bernheim distillery. So that means Bernheim whiskey, that's them as well. Yeah. All right, you got any others you want to throw in? Yeah, I kind of want to I'm I'm checking them off, make sure we mention all of them.

Gavin 34:59

All right. Well, I got a little secret. Wellsity. Are you telling me there's a milk dud stud coming out here pretty soon?

Aaron 35:12

Well, no, it should be out by now. If you don't have, if you don't have your noble dram bottles, sh for shame, for shame, get over there quick before they're all gone.

Gavin 35:24

Because this is a milk dud stud.

Aaron 35:26

So I guess technically we did throw commercial in the middle of the day.

Gavin 35:29

And if we're gonna do larceny, we're gonna do Elijah Craig.

Aaron 35:35

Also, a brand from Heaven Hill. From Heaven Hill.

Gavin 35:40

And this one Larseny. This one, the dragon's fire. Yep. Picked by none other than your drink.

Aaron 35:53

You turn around, let them should let them see the sticker. Uh oh, look at that. Ladies love the stickers. Look at that, look at that. All right, so hold up, hold on. So so Heaven Hill, Henry McKenna, Bernheim, Larseny, Elijah Craig, Evan Williams. Evan Williams. That's been on the show before. Uh-huh. We're gonna do Pikesville. Ooh, a classic rye. Yeah, yeah. Also, on the rye front, what else they got? Uh Ritten House. Rittenhouse rye. Those are their two rye. Right. Also, for those who go go and bend over at the grocery or at the liquor store so you can get the bottle off the bottom shelf. Mellow corn. Mellow corn. It is a whopping. They claim it to be 100% corn. That's how it's always been pitched to me. I did not do the digging if there's any malted bars in there. Slitting for the there's no, there's no rye, there's no wheat. It's it's corn and corn and um just a little bit more corn. Is that a little mellow? Um, there is Parker's Heritage. That is their I'll say Ultra Premium Ultra Umed after Parker Bean. And the brand that I picked. What's that for tonight? Old Fitzgerald, aka Old Fitz. Old Fitz. The old Fitz. OS. All right, so this bottle. Talk about presenting well. No, no, no, no, no, no. I I I bring my A game when it comes to presentations. I'm just gonna put this right Old Fitz seven-year bottled in bond. This too is a weeded whiskey.

Gavin 37:48

Now, if memory serves me correctly, I think the very first post, if you went back and looked at the history of the Noble Dram. No, you are right.

Aaron 38:00

Yeah, gosh, dang it. I like it better when you're wrong. This bottle showed up on the back patio in the pool. It was the very first Noble Dram is coming soon. Teaser was us drinking Old Fitz seven-year bottled and bond. We did bourbon on the patio, or in the pool, which was a great place to drink it. I'll just throw that out there. Yeah. Um, all right, so this one, that bottle was not the same release. This is the fall 2018 release. So if you remember from the rules of bottled and bond, all has to come from one distilling season. So this is the fall season, right? Second half of the year. 2018 is when it all got distilled. Okay. So 2025, end of the year, is when it comes out, right? Seven years. Which explains why you it's now currently, excuse me, now currently available. I literally picked this bottle up like two days ago. Um, this one we also know it's mash bill. This is 68% corn, 20% wheat, and 12% malted barley. Oh. That grain profile, that mash bill might sound familiar. Uh uh, it's the same you get in larceny.

unknown 39:28

Okay?

Aaron 39:28

Oh, well, well. Same recipe. All right. So, for those who have traditionally said, I never ever get a chance at old fits, it's an allocated, it comes in these fancy decanters. A little over a year ago, they announced that they were going to move the seven-year out of the decanter series and into their standard series. Now, it's still a very pretty bottle, right? I think I think both of these um present well on the eyes, if you will. But this is not allocated. Now, I need you to hear me for a sec, though. Allocated and available are not the same kinds of things. Not mutually exclusive. Just because it's not allocated doesn't mean it's available. Yeah. Um, it is, like all bottled in bonds, a spring release and a fall release. Those tend to come with some level of limited availability, and they tend to go quickly because they are only available, they just become available, and there's not a ton of them, so everybody runs out and gets them. So if you can get a hold of one, absolutely want to go get a hold of one. Because I'm gonna tell you from having drank this before, we know we like this one. This one clocks in at $65. Now I'm gonna be honest with you, that's Missouri price. I don't know as if that's quite the same as Texas price. I just happened to be out of town when I was um, I had the opportunity to stick my head in and pick this up. Sneaker. So um, before we get too far down the line, I I do want to let you get a chance to kind of nose and sip this. Here's the question I want to ponder while you sniff, sip, and savor. Notice I did that right the first time.

Gavin 41:17

We're gonna make shirts with that.

Aaron 41:19

This is the exact same recipe as Larceny. Uh-huh. This is an age statement at seven years, and because it's bottled in bond, it's at 100 proof. Larceny barrel proof, right? Those bottles typically have an age between six and eight years. Gavin, for those at home that are a little slow, what is the number between six and eight? Somewhere around seven. Seven. So larceny barrel proof is the same recipe, roughly the same age. It is bottled at barrel strength. Typically, that's closer to about 120 proof instead of a hundred proof that we're getting here with the old fits. It also does tend to carry a little bit higher price point, right? Quite often, barrel proofs that you find are also store picks, or in our case, club picks. So those do tend to carry a premium, right? This bottle happens to be going for 70 bucks. If you got your discount, shame on you if you didn't. If not, it's 80 bucks, right? So it's a little more expensive. Not gonna say they're the same. But we know a guy who might send us an email. Yeah, let us know. Um, my question will be as you sip this, I want your take, thinking back of what the larceny barrel pick we had to do.

Gavin 43:00

I knew this was where you were going.

Aaron 43:01

I knew it. Is it is this just larceny barrel proof in a fancy bottle? That's the question I want to ponder while we have a sip. Oh, that's and then I've got a stupid one to ask too.

Gavin 43:14

That is such a good question and such a hard answer. Yeah, well, because obviously barrel proofs are gonna be different, right? Each one's a little different. Right, but each barrel prick different. Um, any chance you get for an old fits on the shelf, as long as you don't feel like you're getting ripped off on a secondary market. Like, I want that bottle. Like it just presents so well. It's such a beautiful bottle. There's a couple behind us, if you can see it, uh, from other old fits. Yep. And when what's maybe some of the prettiest bottles you'll have in your collection, yeah, right?

Aaron 43:58

Like somebody walks. They're immediately impressed by it. Not suggesting you buy whiskey only for the bottle. But we get it, right? Well, it's the old adage, you eat with your eyes first, right? Like how it presents on the plate matters. How it presents in the bottle, how it looks in the glass does matter. It's why color is always a thing that when you're you're grading, you always pick color. Why? Because you see it, right? If you put it in a glass, does it change a black glass? It doesn't change the taste, but you can't see it. Right. It does, it does impact how I how I perceive it.

Gavin 44:40

So to answer your question, I'm not gonna answer your question. What I'm gonna say is to be continued. Because hent hence we will be tasting the Larceny Noble Dram barrel pick and Elijah Craig Noble Dram barrel pick very soon. Yep, yep, episode is coming. Episode is coming. So I'm not gonna let the cat out of the bag, but what I will say, it is very fun to think that same mash bill, right around the same years, how you cannot correlate that these two are gonna be so similar and so close to one another.

Aaron 45:31

I'm just gonna refill this to about here with larceny barrel proof, and then just put some more water in the top. I mean, you could so do that, and everyone would be like, oh my gosh, this is looking good. Such amazing selection of old fits. Yeah, like how do you keep getting bottles of old fits? Keep giving them away to people. It's like you give me an empty, I'll get you a new one.

Gavin 45:54

It's like the refill program. Um, so I I do think there's a lot of similarities. Um, I'm not going to open the Larceny tonight, but we will open it soon.

Aaron 46:08

Yeah, no, it would be letting the cat out of the bag, yeah, so to speak. Yeah. No, I will soon, very soon. So what I'll say is you have now watched enough episodes, you understand what it is that Gavin and I like, what our what our palates tend to gravitate towards, you've had the opportunity to drink some of those same whiskies to then benchmark our palate against yours. You know if you can trust us or not. If you wait until we pull the bottles out and taste them on the air to decide whether or not you want one, we haven't really used faith at all. Right? Um, and that means you don't get the discount, and hell, it could mean you don't get a bottle. So I think you need to head over to MR Liquors and switch over switch over from YouTube to Spotify or Apple Podcast and listen to us on the way to the store.

Gavin 47:06

Yeah.

Aaron 47:07

Yeah, no.

Gavin 47:08

Go see our good pals over there. Because they got some delicious selections, but even better, two picks from the noble dram. So I'm just enjoying that so much I don't even know what to write down in my notes. I mean, I I wrote some notes here. I am so excited. Okay.

Aaron 47:28

Hold up. I I do have I do have one more goo. I have a goofy one I want to do. We've got time. We got time. So all right. We're talking about Heaven Hill. Yep. So I thought Heaven Hill is a really fun name. What else has Hill in its name?

Gavin 47:49

Um retirement homes.

Aaron 47:54

No, no, they they often do. Um, hopefully they have Heaven in there too. All right, so I have for you a list of five famous hills.

unknown 48:06

Oh.

Aaron 48:07

I need you to put them in order. I'm actually gonna let you cheat off of my list so you don't have to remember all five. Put them in order how I you decide. That's the beauty of this, is you get to decide. All right, so in no particular order, I even thought about alphabetizing them just to make sure that it was like there was, but they're just complete random. All right, favorite hills. Let's go. Number one, American country music singer Faith Hill. Oh, all right. Number two, British comedian Benny Hill. Okay. Number three, the sometimes chubby, sometimes not, actor, Jonah Hill. Okay, Benny, Faith, Faith, Benny, and Jonah so far. Number four, Duke basketball and former NBA player, Grant Hill. Grant. Okay. And number five, my one out of left field, the late, late 90s, early 2000 hip hop band Cypress Hill. Cypress. For those who don't know, they're insane in the membrane. Oh my god. Here we go. All right. I gotta rank these. In however order you want, number one to number five, when you get to pick your hills, where do you put them? This is fun because you had no idea who was on the list. No, I had to. Yeah, that's that's what made this really fun. All right. I told him we were playing a game where he had to pick his favorite, but he had no idea where he was going on.

Gavin 49:49

I thought we were going like Notting Hill or Oh, I didn't even thought of Nottinghill. Something like that. Um, okay. I'm gonna go number five spot, Benny Hill. Oh god, I completely disagree with you already.

Aaron 50:06

Um I just cannot think on the Okay, so Benny Hill was that show that, like, if you were homesick from school, it played like in the middle of the afternoon's reruns, and Benny Hill had the do-do-do-do, doodle-doo, doo doodle-doo doo-doo-doo-doo, and he would run around at the end of every episode. It was all like slapstick British comedy.

Gavin 50:29

It was ridiculous. I need folks out there to tell me how wrong I am because I do not remember this.

Aaron 50:36

Greatest Benny Hill bit of all times. He's dressed in dragon, he's entering a beauty contest, and they asked him what his name was, and he said Iva. Iva biggin. And I remember as a teenage kid, I thought that was hysterical. Uh, when I was homesick, is it in Family Point? Prices Right. Price is right. Everyone watches The Price is Right when they're Fresh Prince was big. Okay, I remember when that was on in the evenings.

Gavin 51:05

Yeah.

Aaron 51:07

Not on reruns. No, no, no. They were they were first runs. Uh I remember when he was just DJ Jazzy Jeff. Yeah. That's a long time ago.

Gavin 51:17

Uh sorry to get off subject, but I remember or thinking back about reruns, reminding me of Back to the Future when he's sitting there trying to explain to them what reruns were. Yeah. He's like, how can they be reruns? They just aired. Um number four, where are you going? Number four.

Aaron 51:37

Um, I'm gonna go Grant Hill. That's kind of where I figured you were going with. Like, I you're going from ones you know the least to the ones you know the most. And you see this.

Gavin 51:51

Like, I'm a basketball guy.

Aaron 51:53

I totally get Grant Hill. Grant Hill was a bit before your time, though. I don't know about that. But see, I remember Grant Hill as a college player. Okay, well, maybe Duke, right? Like, yeah, um, you remember him when he played for Orlando Magic, probably. Yeah, yeah. And then what, the Phoenix Suns? I uh I don't remember where all he played. He played for several teams at the end, like one season each. And now he's on uh I think one of the ESPN, TNT, something like that. He's one of the broadcasters or color guys, one of the other acronyms.

Gavin 52:26

All right, so Benny Hill, Grant Hill, then I'm gonna go Cypress Hill. Oh, oh, you're breaking my wife's heart. And then I'm gonna go Jonah Hill. Yep, this all this is all making sense now, and then we're gonna land at the fine wine that is Faith Hill.

Aaron 52:51

Oh god, she was a looker for sure. Not was, she still is a looker. I haven't seen her in a in a month of Sundays, but there you tell me the country kid from Oklahoma picks Faith Hill number one, not shocked at all. I mean, damn. Between her and Shania Twain, that got me through most of my teenage years.

Gavin 53:12

I mean, even um oh uh sorry, just totally lost it. But there are some folks that just age perfectly, and I feel like Faith Hill's one of those folks.

Aaron 53:29

Yeah, I I I've gotten no complaints with that argument. Nothing. I'd love to argue against you, but I can't. Yeah, I can't. So that might be so I will say this when I when I when I was uh giving a little sneak peek as tonight's activities to the wife, um, she thought there was a good chance you didn't know who Psych Brazil was. And I was like, maybe, maybe.

Gavin 53:52

I mean, they were pretty big for a while. No, I know I know so what I was gonna say, I just remembered. Um, Alison Krause is one of those women that's just like ages like fine line. I feel like her and Camille. I'm gonna have to go look up a picture of Alison Krause now.

Aaron 54:08

I mean, she's gorgeous. All right, all right, there we go. All right, all right, so let's run back through one more time. Number five, Benny Hill. Number four, Grant Hill, number three, Cypress Hill, number two, funny man Jonah Hill, and number one, Guitar Smoke Show, Faith Hill. Yeah, all right. I enjoyed that immensely. Those games, those games are so stupid, and they are my absolute favorite.

Gavin 54:36

But we love them.

Aaron 54:37

All right, let's get to the whiskey because I haven't written nearly enough stuff down. All right. Your bottle.

Gavin 54:44

Yep, you go, buddy. My nose. I think this is vanilla all over it. I actually put vanilla cupcake on it.

Aaron 54:54

I think this has it's the only thing I wrote down. Was vanilla? Was vanilla or cupcake? No, that was my nickname for you, was cupcake. But no, vanilla is what I wrote down. Hey, I've been cold worse. It it smells like somebody's making cookies in the house. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, totally agree. No chocolate, just cookie. Get that chocolate out there. I don't know if we had this debate on air or that was an off-air debate, but my favorite part is cookie. I can care less about the chocolate chips. Yep, we've we've talked about that.

Gavin 55:25

Um I think there is baking spice, uh, there's a creaminess to it. I I even feel it on the nose or smell it on the nose.

Aaron 55:39

I think I think the Heaven Hill glass or grain to glass was actually a little more viscous and oily on the palate than I think the the old fitz is. Not that I don't say it's creamy, but like when we say it for both, I I think Heavenhill GTG has got it, has got it beat out just by a nose. Um yeah, there's a like a custard, creme brulee kind of custard kind of thing going on there. Um I I don't get it so much on the nose, but on the palate, I get more of a sugary sweetness. Like it moves from vanilla to sugar on the palate to me.

Gavin 56:22

On the palate for me, I think there's a bit more fruitiness that I didn't get on the nose. There's a bit of a bit of a cherry note that I get on the palate. Really? And then like cherry sours almost. Yeah, but then it gets really hot, it gets fun and hot and spicy.

Aaron 56:44

There's a like the little gummy cinnamon bears, yeah. Kind of kind of bite on the finish. Yeah, yeah. I'm with you there.

Gavin 56:54

Yeah, or like uh uh uh big red chewing gum.

Aaron 56:58

Oh, yeah, yeah. I never was a big red chewing gum guy, but I do enjoy cinnamon, like the hard cinnamon discs. Oh, what did you say? Cinnamon discs.

Gavin 57:08

Discs, okay.

Aaron 57:10

Good lord. I can't take him anywhere. I apologize. Okay, dad. Well, I don't, you know, we were asking if my family watches this. We we let the cat out of the bag on my sister, and so now she hasn't called to yell at me yet. So evidently she doesn't watch this often. But I do know mom watches the protection. My mom heard you make that joke.

Gavin 57:33

I didn't say it. You did. I don't know. Your mom, we've already talked about it, asked if the next time she was gonna see me, I was gonna be wearing pants. So I mean it's clearly not a disc fan. All right, all right. We um went down that rabble.

Aaron 57:52

So to me, the nose is vanilla, the palate is sweet, and the the finish is spicy. All right. Um, not overly spicy. I think it's a nice, soft, little kind of subdued cinnamon spice that I really enjoy. Um, are you prepared to give it a number? I'm trying, I'm trying to get us back on time. Are you are you prepared? Yeah, I'm prepared. All right. All right. Did you go up or did you go down? What if I did neither? Kept it.

Gavin 58:21

That's just a bunch of squirrels.

Aaron 58:22

You weren't even looking at your page. I'm assuming you mean 90.

Gavin 58:25

I'm a 90 on this one too.

Aaron 58:28

Yeah, I I I'm assuming it's for different reasons because they're they are different on the palette, right? Um, there is there is a significantly different thing going on here. Um but for me, I I actually like this one a little better than than the Heaven Hill. So I went up to a excuse me to an 87. You're a vanity kind of guy. You like the bottle. Hear me out though. Hear me out though. I don't remember if I said it, but MSRP on this bottle is $65. This bottle is half the cost of the Heaven Hill uh grain to glass. I think that alone puts it at a significantly higher score in my mind. Um, so yeah, I I think I think if if you had taken out the price difference, I think my numbers are a little closer together than they than the three points that separate them. But yeah. Um God, that's tasty. That was fun.

Gavin 59:32

So for me, the 90 um for the old fits. Um, I want it on my shelf. It is sweet on the nose, it's spicy on the palate, um, spicy on the finish, sweet on the finish. Oh, it's everything that I also want in a bourbon. These are distinctly different, but also have some similar characteristics. So, for different reasons, I want them both on my shelf. This one is a little bit more, I didn't say it, but I think there's a little bit more tartness, um, a little bit more dryness on the old fits. This one is a bit more level-headed, sweet all the way through, uh, with a bit of nuttiness to it. So I think both have their lanes that they stay in, but they also kind of weave back and forth a little bit. Um, so 90 on both for me, because I think I want them both on my shelf, they're both excellent for their own reasons.

Aaron 1:00:44

I will say, having gone back now and and putting a nose to the heavenil, um, I get a lot more milk chocolate on the nose. Um, the palate, obviously it's aired out, right? The proof has dropped a bit. Um, the palate is much softer, and I get a little less cola and more root beer on the finish uh the second time around.

Gavin 1:01:06

I mean, cola could sorry, root beer could be cola.

Aaron 1:01:09

That would be a that would be a fun twist where we just we drink one whiskey and then drink something else and then come back and then re-rate the same whiskey again. Um I like that. Yeah, no, it's it's one of the fun parts of of doing a side-by-side um where you can bounce back and forth between them. I think that I think that really helps you kind of explore your palate. So all right, we've reached the end of yet another thrilling episode of the Noble Dram. So until next week, we bid you adieu. Cheers. It's la Java. We want to thank you, our noble listener, for joining us. We believe each whiskey has a story, and so do you. So give us your thoughts by leaving a comment. And if you have a whiskey you'd like to see us share, let us know. You don't want to miss a single episode, so subscribe to our YouTube channel, and make sure to like and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to stay up to date on the Noble Dream. And if you find watching us difficult, you can always listen to each episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. As always, be noble and enjoy your journey responsibly.