Old Fitzgerald Bottled In Bond Bourbon Review (Spring 2020)

By Richard Thomas

Rating: B

Old Fitzgerald Bottled in Bond Bourbon, Spring 2020
(Credit: Heaven Hill)

The first batch of Old Fitzgerald Bottled in Bond of the year, the Spring Batch, didn’t reach me until the very last days of spring. By then I was on the cusp of my prized summer custody of my son, which this year entailed several weeks of full-time Daddy Daycare. That consequently throttled down on my whiskey writing, and this particular expression fell right on my breakdown line: it was the last one I evaluated before giving up altogether, and writing about it waited for now.

But you aren’t reading this for a personal anecdote, and I share it only to tell you why I’m posting a review of a (supposedly) Spring release in mid-summer. Old Fitz BiB Bourbon Spring 2020 is a 9 year old wheated bourbon, more than double the statutory minimum for bonded whiskeys. In keeping with the other checkboxes, it is 100 proof and comes from stock aged made by Heaven Hill in a single season and aged under government supervision.

For the Fall 2018 release, Heaven Hill also did a 9 year old bourbon. That raises the question of how this Old Fitz will compare against that one.

The Bourbon
My pour of this whiskey had a reddish, middle amber appearance. The scent was something like a slice of wheat toast with honey spread across the top, then crowned with vanilla drizzle. However, the nose also has an undercurrent of dry spiciness, carrying ginger and pepper.

The flavor profile followed in the same path as the nose, but with the dry, spicy side more evenly matching the sweet and bread-nutty side. That oddly put them very much out of balance (because balance and equality aren’t always the same thing). Although a different animal from the Fall 2018 release, that one also had a nutty and spicy character, which makes me wonder if the two batches might not come from similar warehousing (where being as much a factor as how long when it comes to bourbon maturation). The finish saw the dry, peppery aspect take over and run to the end.

The Price
This item can be had for $89.99.