Heaven Hill Five Brothers Small Batch Bourbon
Look at any serious bourbon brand in Kentucky and you’ll see a focus on family. Lineage, a name, all stories are welcome. Of course, things change - larger corporations absorb brands large and small. Jim Beam may have its 7th and 8th generation master distillers in Fred and Freddie Noe, but Beam Suntory is still calling the shots. Smaller shops like High West have been taken over by Constellation Brands. And yet, Heaven Hill remains one of the very few truly family-owned distilleries that remains in the family’s hands.
Heaven Hill was founded in 1935 by five Shapira brothers - David, Ed, Gary, George, and Mose. They had no stock, Prohibition was only in the grave two years, and yet almost 90 years later they are the largest family-owned and operated distillery in America.
Sure, they’ve endured bumps along the way - the Heaven Hill fire of 1996 is a somber reminder of what lightning plus flammable liquid can do. They’ve also had great successes - from its founding until Conor O’Driscoll’s hiring in 2019, Heaven Hill had a Beam at the helm, starting with Joseph L. Beam, Jim Beam’s first cousin. He was followed by Harry, then Earl, then Parker Beam (and later his son, Craig, after Parker was diagnosed with and passed away from ALS), whose choices and directions created such behemoths as Elijah Craig, the Parker’s Heritage Collection, and Evan Williams. You can’t deny it - if there’s a Beam involved, chances are it’s going to be a good bourbon.
So - is this special, commemorative, one-time-only, distillery-exclusive (plus a few KY retailers) a bump or a success?
Sorry, but the story only goes so far on this one. Celebrating the incredible run the Shapira family has had is certainly a worthy endeavor, but I truly question why they chose to do so in this way. Wait the extra three-to-four years for the 90th anniversary, and do a seriously good - and widely available - release. Maybe even release a new permanent extension, a la Four Roses Small Batch Select from Brent Elliot.
This product - Heaven Hill Five Brothers Small Batch - contains bourbons between five and nine years old in honor of the brothers. It doesn’t taste bad, and for a new bourbon drinker I could even see this being pretty enjoyable. The dissonance is that an extremely limited release focusing on the backstory of a distillery is not targeted at new bourbon drinkers. You need to know the story to appreciate it, and more so you need to know someone in Kentucky to swing by the gift shop or the few retailers at which this can be found.
For half the price, four more proof points, and an age probably closer to 9-11 years old, you can pick up Heaven Hill’s Elijah Craig Small Batch at almost any liquor store in America. And even for a proof hound like I am, Elijah Craig Small Batch is the product I point to most often as an example of what bourbon should taste like when bringing new members into the community. I’ll enjoy adding this label - probably the best part of what is an otherwise very oddly shaped bottle - to my sticker passport, but other than that, this bottle is probably going to gather more dust than drinkers.
Heaven Hill Five Brothers Small Batch Bourbon: Specs
Classification: Bourbon
Origin: Heaven Hill Distillery
Mashbill: 78% Corn, 12% Rye, 10% Malted Barley
Proof: 90 (45% ABV)
Age: 5-9 Years (NAS, Ages According to Back Label)
Location: Kentucky
Heaven Hill Five Brothers Small Batch Bourbon Price: $60
Heaven Hill Five Brothers Small Batch Bourbon Review: Tasting Notes
Eye: Bronzed amber. Medium rims and necklace droplets.
Nose: Cinnamon, far away and expired. Very tight nose…or maybe it’s just not there? Hard to tell. Corn husks.
Palate: Stronger cinnamon here (still expired, but at least it’s there), honey on unsweetened cornbread. A bit hotter than expected, with a mix of proof and oak spice. Mouthfeel is oily yet thin, peppery spice continues with light brown sugar and whole cloves in the back of my throat.
Finish: Veers sweeter, sits heavily in the corners of my mouth and the back palate. Disappears from the front palate quickly. Medium length on the back end.
Overall: Eh? Meh? Kind of like an Elijah Craig Small Batch, but twice the price and half the flavor (also minus four proof points). It’s a nice story, and a worthy one to commemorate - but not by this. I honestly do not understand the purpose or thought process, but then again it’s a limited release, so maybe a few barrels just needed to get out.
Final Rating: 4.5
10 | Insurpassable | Nothing Else Comes Close (Blanton’s Straight from the Barrel)
9 | Incredible | Extraordinary (GTS, Elijah Craig Barrel Proof B518 and B520)
8 | Excellent | Exceptional (12+YO MGP Bourbon, Highland Park Single Barrels)
7 | Great | Well above average (Blanton’s Original, Old Weller Antique, Booker’s)
6 | Very Good | Better than average (Four Roses Small Batch Select, Knob Creek 14+ YO Picks)
5 | Good | Good, solid, ordinary (Elijah Craig Small Batch, Buffalo Trace, Old Grand-Dad Bottled-in-Bond)
4 | Sub-par | Many things I’d rather have (A.D. Laws Four Grain, Compass Box “Oak Cross”)
3 | Bad | Flawed (Iron Smoke Bourbon, Balcones)
2 | Poor | Forced myself to drink it (Buckshee Bourbon and Rye)
1 | Disgusting | Drain pour (Virginia Distilling Co. Cider Cask)
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