Category: Heaven Hill Bourbon Experience

Heaven Hill Select Stock 14 Year Bourbon Review

Heaven Hill Select Stock has been an annual release for a while now. However, until its debut on the You Do Bourbon Experience, it was not very well known. This year’s release, Heaven Hill Select Stock 14 Year Bourbon, is aged in tapered stave barrels. The goal was to see how this unique barrel affected the bourbon’s taste. Read on to find out!

The post Heaven Hill Select Stock 14 Year Bourbon Review appeared first on Bourbon Obsessed℠ .

Heaven Hill Select Stock
Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Aged 14 years in Tapered Stave Barrels
132.3 Proof
Available only during the You Do Bourbon Experience at the Heaven Hill Bourbon Experience, Bardstown, KY
MSRP: $200
Review

Please enjoy my Heaven Hill Select Stock 14 Year Bourbon Review!

So What’s Heaven Hill Select Stock Anyway?

Heaven Hill Select Stock has been an annual release for a while now. However, until its debut at the You Do Bourbon Experience, it was not very well known. That’s probably because it has been a distillery only release. In addition, it has been a release without much fanfare. Select Stock is essentially Heaven Hill’s experimental line. Each release is different. The last release was Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey Finished in New Toasted Oak Barrels. The year before that, it was Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey Finished in Used Coffee Barrels. So it’s always something a little different.

Heaven Hill Select Stock 14 Year Bourbon Front Label
Heaven Hill Select Stock 14 Year Bourbon Front Label

So What’s A Tapered Stave Barrel?

This year’s release is more straightforward. The experiment with this one was aging the bourbon in tapered stave barrels. And, those barrels are just as they sound; the staves are tapered on both ends so that the barrel takes on a diamond like shape. The experiment was to see how this unique barrel affected the bourbon’s taste.

Aged in Parker Beam’s Favorite Warehouse

The bourbon was distilled using Heaven Hill Distillery’s standard bourbon mash bill: 78% corn, 10% rye and 12% malted barley. The barrels were aged in Rickhouse Y, which was said to be Parker Beam’s favorite warehouse. Furthermore, these barrels were aged 14 years and just 26 barrels were chosen to create the small batch.

Tasting Notes – Heaven Hill Select Stock 14 Year Bourbon

Let’s taste it:

🛏 Rested for 15 minutes in a Heaven Hill Distillery 85th Anniversary Glass

I don’t usually do this, but I have to comment on the color. It’s a deep copper that belies this bourbon’s age and stature. It coats the glass above the liquid with legs that have no intention of sitting down

👉🏻Nose: Lightly burnt caramel, rich brown sugar & vanilla; a hint of Fruit Loops; oak & leather; moderate alcohol
👉🏻Taste: The flavors continue and are dominated by caramel with a molasses & brown sugar sweetness and dry oak. There’s a little bit of a tang to it, and some leather, too
👉🏻Finish: Spice and char become more apparent; dryness increases, but the other flavors, including some sweetness, linger. There’s a growing burn and a warm Kentucky Hug.

Heaven Hill Select Stock 14 Year Bourbon Side Label
Heaven Hill Select Stock 14 Year Bourbon Side Label
Classic Bourbon Flavors, And Then Some

Select Stock 14 Year has rich classic bourbon flavors, with that crème brûlée character on the nose, but yet with some added fruit. The alcohol is noticeable, but not overpowering. The taste has all that I would expect, with that small bit of tanginess that I feel is a combination of the dry oak and brown sugar that I sometimes find in higher proof Heaven Hill bourbons like Elijah Craig Barrel Proof.

The oak is noticeable throughout, but it’s fairly dry, and for me blends well with the other flavors. While I would not consider Select Stock 14 Year Bourbon over-oaked, if you are not an oak fan, then proceed with caution. Although, there’s no denying that a certain degree of oak is expected in a 14 year old barrel strength bourbon. Last, but not least, the finish is so long that I almost don’t have to take another sip…ever…but yet I will!

Conclusion

This bourbon absolutely lives up to what I expected it to be. It is reminiscent of an Elijah Craig Barrel Proof, but it brings even more body and character to the table. It’s simply just a delicious bourbon with all those classic older Heaven Hill flavors that I love. If you enjoy a well-aged bourbon, then you should head on over to the Heaven Hill Bourbon Experience and fill a bottle as quickly as you can! Well, actually you should make a reservation first to avoid disappointment. But then head on over! Cheers!🥃

I hope you have enjoyed my Heaven Hill Select Stock 14 Year Bourbon Review! Want to learn about another Heaven Hill Select Stock release? Check out my Select Stock Bourbon Finished in Toasted Oak Barrels Review! Maybe you would like to learn more about visiting Heaven Hill Distillery? Then you’ll want to visit our Heaven Hill Bourbon Experience Review!

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Heaven Hill Workers on Strike

By Mark Gillespie September 11, 2021 – With the biggest weekend of the year in the “Bourbon Capital of the World” just a few days away, visitors  to Bardstown, Kentucky for the Kentucky Bourbon Festival may be greeted with picket signs at the town’s newest attraction. Heaven Hill workers started a strike today after their five-year contract expired at midnight and are staffing a picket line outside the Heaven Hill Bourbon Experience, which opened this summer after a two-year renovation and upgrade project. Members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 23-D voted overwhelmingly in favor of the strike Read More »

By Mark Gillespie

September 11, 2021 – With the biggest weekend of the year in the “Bourbon Capital of the World” just a few days away, visitors  to Bardstown, Kentucky for the Kentucky Bourbon Festival may be greeted with picket signs at the town’s newest attraction. Heaven Hill workers started a strike today after their five-year contract expired at midnight and are staffing a picket line outside the Heaven Hill Bourbon Experience, which opened this summer after a two-year renovation and upgrade project.

Members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 23-D voted overwhelmingly in favor of the strike Thursday night, according to Louisville television station WDRB. The local represents 420 production workers at Heaven Hill’s main campus in Bardstown and its maturation warehouses around Nelson County, and also represents workers at Barton 1792 Distillery and the Four Roses maturation and bottling facility in Cox’s Creek. Workers at the Heaven Hill Bourbon Experience visitors center are not represented by the union.

Union leaders are upset with what they claim is a proposal to change work shifts to create a “non-traditional” work schedule that includes Saturdays and Sundays, instead of the current Monday-Friday schedule for all production workers. “They feel that rather than working to live, they’re trying to implement things to make them live to work,” Local 23-D president Matt Aubrey told WhiskyCast in a telephone interview. “They’re family-owned and ‘hey, we want to treat everyone like family,’ they’re not treating these members like family…all these members out here, they have a family, they have sons and daughters, grandchildren…they have loved ones that if what the company wants to preserve and what it wants to push, it’s gonna take these members away from their family,” he said.

In 2016, workers were divided on whether to accept the contract that expired last night. That deal included $7,250 in bonuses for each worker over the length of the contract along with annual pay raises in the final three years, and 66% of those voting cast ballots to accept the new deal. According to union leaders, 96 percent of those voting Thursday night supported going on strike as soon as the contract expired.

Heaven Hill executives were not available for interviews, but shared this statement with WhiskyCast.

“Thursday evening, the membership of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 23-D failed to ratify a new five-year contract with Heaven Hill. Since the company was founded, the support of our employees has been a source of pride and we have had productive conversations with the union for several months now regarding components of the contract. We will continue to collaborate with UFCW leadership toward passage of this top-of-class workforce package.”

The strike will also affect Heaven Hill’s participation in the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, which gets underway this Thursday. Festival officials have confirmed that Heaven Hill will not be taking part in tastings and other events during the festival, including the World Championship Bourbon Barrel Relay competition in which the distillery’s teams have dominated in recent years. Aubrey told WhiskyCast his members will not be allowed to carry picket signs anywhere other than at Heaven Hill facilities represented by Local 23-D, including the Bardstown campus and nearby maturation warehouses. However, they can wear t-shirts promoting their support for the strike in public – including at the Festival grounds around Spalding Hall in Bardstown.

The walkout will primarily affect Heaven Hill’s Bardstown-based bottling and maturation operations. Workers at Heaven Hill’s Bernheim Distillery in Louisville are represented by a different UFCW chapter, and spirits distilled at Bernheim are trucked to Bardstown to be filled into barrels before being placed in one of the company’s warehouses for maturation. Heaven Hill has not indicated whether production at Bernheim will be stopped or slowed down during the strike.

The last strike affecting a major Kentucky distiller came in September of 2018 when Four Roses workers walked out for two weeks over the company’s plans to create a different benefits package for new employees. That dispute ended when the company agreed to allow all employees to choose between the current sick leave policy or sign up for short-term disability insurance that takes effect after an employee uses 10 sick days in a year.

Aubrey also denied reports on social media suggesting that a strike is also coming at Sazerac’s Barton 1792 Distillery in Bardstown, noting that the union’s contract at 1792 Barton does not expire until 2024.

This story will be updated with additional information as it becomes available.

Editor’s note: This story was updated with additional information following an interview with UFCW Local 23-D president Matt Aubrey. In addition, we have clarified where Local 23-D members are allowed to picket to include the company’s maturation warehouse sites where union members work.

Links: Heaven Hill | United Food & Commercial Workers