Commemorative Heaven Hill 13-year Bourbon Signals the End of Aging at its Deatsville site
Everything that's good about Heaven Hill bourbon is in this bottle: caramel, honey, cooked apples, vanilla taffy, sharp spice and toasted oak.
Bottle Details
- DISTILLER: Heaven Hill Distillery
- TYPE: Kentucky Straight Bourbon
- MASH BILL: 78% Corn | 10% Rye | 12% Malted Barley
- AGE: 13 years
- YEAR: 2026
- PROOF: 109 (54.5% ABV)
- AVAILABILITY: Widely on the internet
- MSRP: $199.99
- BUY ONLINE: The bottles can be purchased when taking the Deatsville rickhouse tour. But they're also available online at multiple sites.
TASTING NOTES
NOSE: Warm brown sugar, clover honey, fried glazed donut and toasted oak. If breakfast bourbon were a thing, this would be it.
PALATE: Everything that's good about Heaven Hill bourbon is in this bottle: caramel, honey, cooked apples, vanilla taffy, sharp spice and toasted oak. Easy, easy drinker with a little backbone and finesse.
FINISH: Lean, short and a little drying. Your tongue will be asking for more.
RATING: Bar. This Heaven Hill Deatsville Commemorative Bourbon is a terrific expression of HH's house style. But at $200, I'd want to want to sample it before buying it–most any spirit, frankly.
WORTH THE PRICE: If you remove the Deatsville rarity and compare it to another premium bottling in the HH line, such as William Heavenhill, I'm choosing William Heavenhill. There also are modern Elijah Craig Barrel Proof releases I like better for a third of the cost. So, no, it's not worth the price for me.
WHO IT'S FOR: People who love great sips as much as the stories behind them. Collectors who won't flip it and might even drink it, and single barrel pickers familiar with the mysterious virtues of the Deatsville campus and its rickhouses.
REVIEWER'S VERDICT: This is a bottle born of a 17-barrel blend of what will be some of the last whiskies to come from these storied rickhouses. These buildings (easily viewed from the Deatsville Loop, accessible from Hwy. 245 between I-65 and Bardstown, so go see 'em!) were commissioned by the late Bill Samuels, founder of Maker's Mark Distillery, and located on the historic site of the derelict T.W. Samuels Distillery. Late HH master distiller Parker Beam preferred whiskies from the Deatsville rickhouses over all other HH rickhouses, and back then, he had more than 50 houses from which to choose. That a lot of barrel pickers swear by bourbons aged at Deatsville also establishes that location's creds. And look at it this way, HH is conducting tours of these buildings in the run-up to shutting them down. That's how special they are.
Buyers and collectors of this bourbon don't merely love rarities, they love the stories behind them. I appreciate that context is so influential when these people make purchasing decisions. But that just isn't me. I keep the questions simple: Does it taste good, and is it truly remarkable and deserving of such high a price?
In this case, not for me. But there will be many who won't hesitate to part with $200 for this. If they take the special tour of the Deatsville houses, it'll be hard to resist.
Disclaimer
This bottle found its way to us compliments of the brand. What ends up on the page is ours alone — and they knew that going in. Around here, honesty isn't a policy. It's the whole damn point.
About Our Rating System
Bourbon & Banter uses a three-tier rating system created over a decade ago: Bottle, Bar, or Bust.
- 🍾 Bottle — Buy it. This one deserves a place in your cabinet. (Approximate equivalent: 85 and above on a 100-point scale)
- 🥃 Bar — Worth trying, but not necessarily worth owning. Find it at a bar before committing to a bottle. (Approximate equivalent: 70–84)
- 💀 Bust — Skip it. Life is too short and your shelf space too valuable. (Approximate equivalent: below 70)
Numeric scores imply a precision that doesn't exist — and most publications never score below 80, making half the scale meaningless. We'd rather answer the question that actually matters: buy it, try it at a bar before you buy, or skip it. The approximate equivalents above are for reference only.