Old Fitzgerald 7 Year Old Bottled-in-Bond Bourbon Review

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Back in 2018, Heaven Hill added a new label to their exclusive bourbon lineup – Old Fitzgerald Bottled-in-Bond. It came in a totally redesigned decanter that still remains one of the most beautiful bottle shapes on the marketplace. No longer would this once-storied brand be relegated to the bottom shelf where Heaven Hill had kept it for years, it had graduated to the top of the bourbon hierarchy. Heaven Hill put its wheated bourbon recipe inside with impressive age statements. During its first five years, there were frequent releases that wore teenage age statements. One even topped out at 19-years-old.

But the decanters were only a bi-annual release (with a special gift shop release every other year) and were hard to come by for the average enthusiast. So Heaven Hill decided to create a more obtainable release that would eventually become an everyday shelf staple. Keeping with the Old Fitzgerald theme of bottling it in accordance to the Bottled in Bond Act, the proof would remain the same but it was to be only 7-years-old. In this way, it would not step on the toes of the Old Fitzgerald decanter lineup which has dipped down as young as 8-years-old for some releases.

Heaven Hill reached back into the past once again for ideas for bottle shapes and ended up creating this beauty. It’s a throwback to Old Fitz decanter designs of the 1950s and 1960s:

How different is Old Fitzgerald from Larceny?

One of the major questions I had when I saw this bottle was coming out was “How different, exactly, is this going to be from Larceny?” Larceny was supposedly a blend of 4 to 7 year old wheated bourbon which I suspect has went up in age if we use the metric of how old the barrels are that they’re using for their single barrel program (which range from 6 to 8-years-old). And at just 3% ABV less than Old Fitz, they’re practically the same.

I am not the biggest fan of Larceny, either. I think that it’s too similar to Elijah Craig bourbon. It’s only saving grace is that it’s cheap. But Old Fitz BiB has an MSRP that’s a little bit more than double the price of Larceny at around $60. So what exactly makes it worth that increased price? Just the fancy new bottle with the green velvet bag?

That’s what I hope to find out in this review. As usual, I sampled this neat in a glencairn.

Tasting Notes

Nose: The nose comes off as older and more developed than it actually is. Something I was not expecting was this kind of musty scent that I typically associate with either dusties or bourbon that was pulled from bottom floors of warehouses. There is a good amount of sweetness with each sniff that smells like toffee, toasted oak and vanilla custard. There are also fruits like cherries and orange zest. Spices are somewhat familiar with allspice coming in first and cinnamon following a little bit later.

Palate: I’m impressed to find very well-rounded flavors without any hint of youthfulness or bitterness. Strange for a 7-year-old wheated bourbon! Each sip tastes older than is should with oak being surprisingly prevalent. The fruit notes consist of dried trail mix fruit pieces (not a bad thing in my book) and the sweets like caramel and vanilla custard are appreciated. There is also a perfect balance of baking spices. What is most interesting to me is that for 100 proof, the viscosity of the liquid comes off like it was bottled at barrel proof. It’s thicker and more coating than I expected and is definitely a stand-out trait.

Finish: After the sip is complete, spice, a hint of leather and soft oak lingers. The standard sweet notes of caramel remain and are coupled with a note that I can only say resembles honey. Where that was up to this point is anyone’s guess. The fruit notes I found along the way have all kind of dropped off leaving only the raisins to find. That’s still a pretty good note to have at the end.

Score: 7.4/10

Consider me impressed. I went into my session with this bottle thinking I was going to get a slightly hotter Larceny experience. That’s not what happened at all. Instead, I found a younger, wheated bourbon that had already achieved a viscous, coating mouthfeel and more oak (and also a hint of musty oak at times) than I was expecting. I was assuming if Heaven Hill had a trick for Old Fitz up its sleeve, it would have been to make it fruiter than normal. That wasn’t entirely the case, but the first two profile notes I mentioned were enough to raise the rating significantly.

Another bottle popped up in my mind that I found a similar experience with: Knob Creek 12 Year. No, I’m not saying they’re similar in taste, but I also went into Knob Creek 12 Year with preconceived notions that I was going to be tasting a slightly more oaky Knob Creek 9 Year (ironically, the 12 year is also double the cost of the younger version, just like this bottle is to Larceny). That didn’t happen at all. Instead, I was flabbergasted by an array of fruit and oak that made it seem older and more complex than what the label suggested. For the Knob Creek 12, I later learned that Jim Beam’s blending team was using older barrels and also barrels with decidedly more fruit-forward characteristics in that blend than was expected. It was like drinking a bourbon from another distillery entirely.

I tell you that story because I want to make it clear that the blending team at Heaven Hill seem to have picked barrels from a different part of a warehouse (or maybe unconventional warehouses like the brick ones at Bernheim) that don’t see as much heat fluctuations, making them more fruity and dense. In this way, they built a bourbon with a new and unexpected profile. This is definitely NOT “Larceny+”

Final Thoughts

I have been a little bit miffed that secondary flippers seemed poised to continue buying up all of these new decanters and selling them for double the price. I figured it was going to be a year or two before I’d find one without having to hunt and for MSRP. It turns out that my local Meijer had them readily available for $53 just the other day. This is a great sign that Heaven Hill has probably produced enough to keep the masses satisfied. So my advice to you is that this bottle seems to absolutely be worth your time and money to seek out. And now that it seems like supply has caught up, you won’t have to pay ridiculous secondary prices either.