'Easy drinking' Sums Up Heaven Hill Double Mash BIB Bourbon
The mouthfeel carries far more weight than the nose implied it would, and that's good, and it's redolent of golden apple, light caramel, bread crust and barrel toast. This easy-going bourbon was built for neat drinking.
Bottle Details
- DISTILLER: Heaven Hill Distillery
- TYPE: "Double Mash" Bourbon: a Blend of Traditional Bourbon and Wheated Bourbon
- MASH BILL: Double Mash unites two-thirds traditional bourbon mash bill (78% Corn |10% Rye | 12% Malted Marley) with one-third wheated bourbon mash bill (68% Corn | 20% Wheat | 12% Malted Barley)
- AGE: 9 years and bottled-in-bond
- YEAR: 2026
- PROOF: 100 (50% ABV)
- AVAILABILITY: Nationwide in limited quantities
- MSRP: $49.99
- BUY ONLINE: Heaven Hill Bottle Shop
TASTING NOTES
NOSE: The nose is clean, light, a floral and fruity, which is a little surprising given its age. Honey, caramel and expressed lemon peel about sums it up.
PALATE: The mouthfeel carries far more weight than the nose implied it would, and that's good. As on the nose, it's honeyed, redolent with golden apple, light caramel, bread crust and barrel toast, and the whole is nicely balanced. This easy-going bourbon was built for neat drinking. It might work in a gold rush cocktail, but pouring it over ice being might dilute its better qualities too quickly.
FINISH: Here's where baking spice and oak kick in to good effect. Finish is barely warming, short lived and full of floral character.
Reviewer's Verdict
RATING: Bar, so you can see whether you want to spend $50 on it.
WORTH THE PRICE: $50 isn't a terribly high a price, especially for BIB 9-year whiskey. But when when I see 1.75 mls of Evan Williams selling for $25 on a skid at Costco, and and HH 7-year BIB bourbon selling at $40 across the aisle from it, I'm more prone to purchasing those based on boldness and price.
Heaven's Hill's barbell positioning of great and pricier whiskies on one end of its portfolio and total bargains on the other has always worked well for consumers. Double Mash lies left of the center, which makes it a bit of an outlier for me based on price and its light profile.
WHO IT'S FOR: Anyone who loves extra-easy drinking bourbon that still has good flavor and mouthfeel.
REVIEWER'S VERDICT: I'm not the only one who believes Heaven Hill is occasionally a victim of its deserved and consumer-focused success. Its line of legendary of affordable whiskies is so good (Elijah Craig Barrel Proof, Henry McKenna, Pikesville Rye among many others) that when a new release like this comes out, it's always compared to those old, robust greats. It's like younger siblings being compared to older siblings: they often can't win.
What's worth noting is Heaven Hill's eagerness to experiment with vast whiskey stocks. Sales are slow, its supply of liquids is bottomless, so why not put together something like Double Mash? Quite simply, HH does that because it can, and I am confident that we've not seen the last of these novelties. Big deal if I'm not wowed by this one. Not only will others like it, HH will release something else soon enough that'll slay me.
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.