William Heavenhill 13 Year Old Bottled in Bond Bourbon Review

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William Heavenhill bourbon first appeared in 2008 as a trailblazer for the new “Premium Limited Time Offering” categories that producers began to push. The label was a sort of test bed to see if there was a market willing to pay more money for exclusivity. Believe it or not, premiumization wasn’t a foregone conclusion at this point in bourbon history. Our favorite brown water beverage still had a perception of being blue collar. The fact that Heaven Hill continues to produce this line proves it was a success, but there was four years between the first and the second release that possibly signaled the boardroom had its doubts.

Moving on, what we have here today is a 13-year-old bottled-in-bond bourbon that was offered at the gift shop in 2020. I happened upon this bottle through a 1:1 trade with a single barrel store pick of Weller Full Proof back in that same year. It carried a secondary value of around $400 which was about the same as this bottle of WHH – despite the fact that the Weller Full Proof was almost 1/4 of the retail price.

William Heavenhill

Out of the millions of barrels that Heaven Hill has aging in their 70 warehouses, the William Heavenhill label represents their best. Obviously, taste is subjective but these bottles are some of the most rare and highest priced ones that they offer.

The average age of the first 11 editions of WHH is 14.3 years old. Most of them have been bottled at barrel proof or close to it. But occasionally Heaven Hill decides to bottle them according to the rules and regulations of the Bottled in Bond Act. This has happened in 2014, 2020 and 2024.

According to the back label on this bottle, the 35 barrels that made up this batch were barreled on October 19, 2006 (which would make this a little more than 13.5 years old). It also says that it was aged on the 4th floor of Warehouse AA which they claim is a warehouse at the Schenley warehouse campus. But Warehouse AA is actually located at Heaven Hill’s Deatsville location. So either the label team got the warehouse wrong or the campus wrong.

Whatever the case may be, aging on roughly the middle floor of the rickhouse seen above has probably raised the proof slightly over the original barrel entry proof (125). My guess is that the barrels averaged around 130 proof when they were pulled. No exact bottle count was given but a good guess would be around 5-6,000 bottles were produced. That makes this release pretty rare.

So how is it? Let’s find out. I sampled this neat in a glencairn.

Tasting Notes

Nose: A rich, nutty scent floats out of the glen and into my nose. There’s also aromatic notes of cinnamon, oak and wood polish. The chocolate scent combines with the cinnamon to create a sort of Mexican Hot Chocolate experience. Sweet notes round out the profile with Tres Leches and caramel.

Palate: The mouthfeel is very thick and viscous for being 100 proof. It’s something I haven’t experienced since… Parker’s Heritage 10 Year Single Barrel – a release that came from an adjacent warehouse at Deatsville. It could be the best thing this bottle has going for it. Anyway, the tannins begin to show off the age with oak, coffee and toffee all adding richness and depth. There are Cinnamon Red Hots in the background as well as a hint of black pepper. Fruit notes are few and far between (as is usually my experience with Heaven Hill’s bourbon) but I can pick up on some toasted citrus peel. 

Finish: The two main notes that linger the longest involve spice and tannins. There’s the sizzle that remains from the peppercorns and Cinnamon Red Hots on the palate to the oak and leather that come from 13+ years in a barrel. That’s not to say that it’s a two-dimensional affair because the finish still stays fairly sweet the whole time. The finish is also moderate-to-long in length.

Score: 8.2/10

This is a delicious bourbon with an above-average viscosity that I wouldn’t expect for a bottled-in-bond release. Additionally, the flavors seem slightly more amplified and border on the edge of being really great. Unfortunately there’s not much by way of flavor uniqueness that sets it apart from other Heaven Hill bourbons around this age.

I’ve given friends of mine pours from this bottle and it has been well-liked. But none have ever described it as tasting anywhere close to the $250 pricetag it once carried – let alone the price it currently goes for on the secondary market.

Final Thoughts

Heaven Hill is the king of bottled-in-bond offerings. On top of having more BiB labels than any other distillery, they also have covered virtually every category from bourbon, wheated bourbon, rye whiskey and corn whiskey. Why am I bringing that up? Because when a producer makes so many labels like that, it’s inevitable that people compare the most expensive releases with the least expensive releases. In this case, many reviewers have brought up the fact that these WHH BiB offerings do not seem to be worth the 5-fold price increase between them and Henry McKenna BiB. For many of them (including me) the flavor similarities don’t merit the added headache and expense of tracking one down.

Yet despite all of this, WHH 13 BiB continues to hold a high secondary value. Don’t be fooled into thinking it’s because of some mind-blowing taste profile, it’s really just because of its rarity. So if you’re into drinking rather than collecting, you can feel good about skipping this one.