Heaven Hill Select Stock releases can be summed up in five words:

WE WANT TO KNOW MORE!

Seriously…these are so cool! It’s one of those experimental, extremely small batch products that are always interesting, even if not every release is a winner.

Take this one - a 17-year-old Kentucky straight corn whiskey double barreled in used oak. By law, corn whiskey follows many of the same rules as bourbon - distilled to no more than 160 proof, barreled at no more than 125 proof, bottled at no less than 80 proof - but it also has some quirks. It can be matured in new or used oak containers, but those containers, if new, cannot be charred. It requires 80% corn in the mashbill, much more than the 51% required mashbill-wise by any other whiskey in the statutes.

The oak container is almost always a barrel. I hesitate to say always since I haven’t found a single example of someone using an oak box or sphere or other shape, but the rules are the rules. For ease of content here, we’ll say barrel - just keep in mind that by law it doesn’t have to be a barrel to be legal.

Heaven Hill is known for Mellow Corn, its bottled-in-bond corn whiskey that’s as good a bargain as one can find in the whiskey world. It’s aged at least four years (as required by the bottled-in-bond regulations) and matured in used barrels. It’s a great product with few “buts” to be had.

If there’s any, though, it comes down to two things: what would a cask-strength Mellow Corn taste like, and what would a longer-aged Mellow Corn be like.

This release doesn’t answer the cask strength question, being bottled at 97 proof (48.5% ABV), but it might just answer the aging question. At 17 years and one month, this is the oldest corn whiskey I’ve found through more-than-cursory Google searching. Plus, few large-scale distilleries even produce corn whiskey of any notable age, so it’s fitting that this comes from Heaven Hill anyway.

This corn whiskey (I’m assuming it’s the same mashbill Heaven Hill uses for Mellow Corn, since there’s no reason why not) was aged for over 14 years in a used barrel before being re-barreled into a used wheat whiskey barrel - Bernheim Wheat Whiskey - for over 2 years more.

These Select Stock whiskies are cool, but they’re also thought through. Corn whiskey is, in some ways, more similar in maturation to scotch or Irish whiskey in that it’s aged in used barrels (the latter two being aged mostly in ex-bourbon casks). Even with first-fill ex-bourbon casks, meaning it’s been used once to make bourbon when the cask was new and this is the first fill after that, the cask is more for rounding out the edges as the whiskey slowly ages than for imparting strong flavors or colors. Second- or third-fill casks have even less influence on the final product.

If you’re a scotch producer and are using the barrel mainly as an aging vessel and not for primary flavoring, where you put the cask doesn’t mean much within reasonable boundaries. The climate is cool, meaning less interaction between the wood and the liquid. Not so in Kentucky!

The Heaven Hill Select Stock Double Barreled Kentucky Straight Corn Whiskey was aged in Warehouse I on floor 6 (out of 7, so pretty up there). Oddly, instead of being on a rack, the barrel was aged on the floor. Perhaps Heaven Hill was thinking that racking the barrel would further limit an already curtailed maturation process, and so the floor would expose the barrel to more temperature fluctuation than a rack would. Given the location’s height, I’m curious what the actual barrel strength would have been for this, as it’s unlikely to be 97 after 17+ years.

Whatever the case, the final product is not only amber-colored like an older whiskey, its flat-out phenomenal. I tasted it alongside some A. H. Hirsch Select and it held its own quite well.

Heaven Hill Select Stock Double Barreled Kentucky Straight Corn Whiskey: Specs

Classification: Straight Corn Whiskey

Origin: Heaven Hill Distillery

Mashbill: 80% Corn, 20% Malted Barley

Proof: 97 (48.5% ABV)

Age: 17 Years 1 Month Old

Location: Kentucky

Heaven Hill Select Stock Double Barreled Kentucky Straight Corn Whiskey Price: N/A, Gift Shop-only release

Official Website

Heaven Hill Select Stock Double Barreled Kentucky Straight Corn Whiskey Review: Tasting Notes

Eye: Amber topaz. Medium rims and syrupy droplet legs.

Nose: Fresh corn on the cob, coconut shrimp coating, gentle wheat notes. No proof on the nose, warm roasted vegetables minus any vegetal notes, if that makes sense. It’s more about the slow roasted flavor.

Palate: Muted at first - the cask flavors are stronger than the corn at first. Slowly, unsweetened cornbread with salted butter emerges. Roasted peanuts, boiled ones too, open up with air. The mouthfeel is silky and oily, coating without being heavy. Semisweet chocolate and peanut skins emerge after the second sip, like an exploration of all the flavors in a kernel of corn.

Finish: Medium length, and this is where the corn flavor really evolves into a fully matured and aged whiskey. Roasted corn, crispy edges, and a light wheat flavor that lends body and smoothness.

Overall: Unusual, intriguing, and incredible. This takes time to open up, and deserves that time - when it’s ready, it’s a beauty. If Heaven Hill won’t do a cask strength Mellow Corn, do more of this. I’ll wait the 17 years and buy a few cases.

Final Rating: 8.0

10 | Insurpassable | Nothing Else Comes Close (Elijah Craig Barrel Proof Old Label Batch 4 or 2, Blanton’s Straight from the Barrel)

9 | Incredible | Extraordinary (GTS, Elijah Craig Barrel Proof B518 and B520)

8 | Excellent | Exceptional (Stagg Jr. Batch 10, 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 | Has promise

1-3 | Let’s have a conversation