175. Heaven Hill 6 Year Old Style Bourbon Review

Welcome to another trip down the Bourbon Road with your hosts, Jim and Mike. So grab a glass of your favorite bourbon and kick back.

We would like to thank our friends at Premium Bar Products for sponsoring this episode. If you're ready to step up your game at your home bar, check out premiumbarproducts.com to choose from their wide selection of glassware, all of which can be custom engraved with your personal message or logo. And there's no minimum order. So after the episode, head over to premiumbarproducts.com and check out everything they have to offer. Now let's get on with the show.

Hello, everybody. I'm Jim Shannon. I'm Mike Hyatt.

This is The Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, we're drinking a bottle of Heaven Hill whiskey that you could only get in Kentucky. So you got to come on a pilgrimage to Kentucky, to the Bourbon Trail. And I'm just going to put it out there. I want to say, A good portion of our listeners are going to try and make it here this year.

I'd say it'd be a bumper year to come to Kentucky. If you read last week's blog or a couple weeks ago, I wrote about bourbon hunting and this would be a bottle if I wasn't from Kentucky that you're going to want to take back with you. A bottle or a case?

Well, you could afford a case of this. You can definitely afford a case of this.

Well, go ahead, Mike, tell them what it is. I bought it for like $12.95 at Paradise Spirits and Wine. He had about eight on there. And as I said in a previous show, I'm not a greedy guy, right? Did buy a bottle for you. You did? I didn't know. I thought I looked at your bar and I was like, I don't think Jim has a bottle of this that I can remember. So I'm going to get him a bottle, get myself a bottle. I gave a bottle to another buddy that I bought before, and it was one per person, so I bought it for a guy from Alaska, Dan Payne, one of my buddies, and gave that to him. But you needed a bottle, so I've had it before. I was like, this is a good bottle of bourbon right here, even though it's $12.95. And they're on the edge of their seat, Mike. What is it? So it is the Heaven and Hill old-style bourbon, six-year-old. This is the green label.

It's still got a year on there.

Yeah, it does. Right? Age-dated.

It is the green label. It is not bottled and bought. Let's just call it $12 a bottle. Yeah. 12 bucks a bottle. Six-year-old bourbon from a big boy, Heaven Hill. This one's available only in Kentucky. Got to come here to get it. Fred Minick had it on his show. Top bourbons in the U.S. under $15.

This is right up there, right? Very few that would hit that list.

Yeah. He had ancient age. He had very old Barton on there. He had old charter. He had even Heaven Hills own, their Evan Williams black label. But the one that took home the number one spot at the end of that challenge, he was even surprised by it. Was this right here? Was this one right here. Number one bourbon under $15. And for 12 bucks, you can't beat it. I'm ready to find out for myself for sure. It's been a minute since I had it. Well, let's do it. Let's check it out. Now, it's got that nuttiness to it. It does. Boy, you can just pick out. For me, it's that almond with Heaven Hill. It's that almond. You said nuttiness. It doesn't matter to me what nut because I never can choose which one, but

I always think peanuts. I don't know why I think that. A good trill mix. It's kind of a trill mix smell to it, actually. A little bit of chocolate in the sauce, this.

And of course it's got the typical vanilla and caramel on it, but it's heavier for me. It's got that oak presence. Six years is old enough to bring out that oak in a serious way. You ever heard of peanut brittle? A little bit of peanut brittle on it. I like Peanut Brittle. Who doesn't like Peanut Brittle? The nose on this is great. It does remind me of the Heaven Hill Bottled and Bond product. Very similar. We still got a few bottles of that laying around. Still a couple. Yeah. The six-year Bottled and Bond. The seven years out there now has been available for a while. Let's taste it. Cheers. Cheers. Oh my goodness. I mean, that is full bodied. It's got that nutty, it's not overly sweet, but it's got that, I mean, you get the spice on it. You get the nuttiness on it. You get that deep dark caramel, a little bit of a char smoke oak on it.

You're hitting the nail on the head on everything in there. I still get a little bit of that peanut brittle, but not a whole lot of that sweetness from the peanut brittle. Just more peanuts on the taste. That oak is there, like you said. Little bit of Kentucky hug on this one. The bites on the back of the tongue, almost like a black pepper.

Yeah, it does get peppery on the back end. The hug does start to build up a little bit.

There's just the slightest bit of bitterness back there.

You know, these are, you know, at $12 a bottle, these aren't going to be the choicest of barrels out of Heaven Hill. I would have to say, but they're good barrels.

I mean, for a 90 proofer, man, this thing, it rocks. Like I said, even if you walk in the store, you might not find this thing. It's going to be hard to find, actually, because people do crave these right here. There's a reason it says one per customer, usually in the store. Now, James don't have one per customer. He probably was a take them all.

So if you, if you come to Kentucky for your bourbon tour this summer, um, look for a bottle, look for a case. I would, I would highly suggest a case. Now these are not six bottle cases. These are 12 bottle cases.

Well, I tell you, I brought a bag full of bourbon over here tonight for us to talk about and kind of figure out shows, future shows, right? And there's two bourbons sitting up on your bar right now that are brought that case.

would be cheaper than those two bottles. I agree. Yeah, you can't go wrong with this. Old style bourbon. Yeah, I was very sad to see the Heaven Hill bottle of Bond that honestly, the six-year bottle of Bond go away. It went away two, was it two years ago? Two, two and a half years ago. I was sorry to see it go away. It was also a $12 bottle at the time and it's been since replaced by the seven-year bottle of Bond. But it's not the same whiskey and it's not the same price.

Well, they went up to like 37 or 40 bucks somewhere in there. That's a little bit for that, but still a bottle and bond. You know, Bernie Lubbers from there, he is the bottle and bond man, professor, bottle, whatever you want to call him. Whiskey professor. The whiskey professor. likes to play music, sing about whiskey. I bet you still, you'd like this, right? Oh yeah. Guarantees drinking this. Yeah. A good bottle, 90 proof, $12. Only released in Kentucky. I'd call this a medium finish on this. It's not sticking around, which you wouldn't expect it to. A respectable bourbon though for that price.

Right. Yeah. You're still talking about a $12 bottle, but it's a fantastic bottle. It'll stand up to some much higher price whiskeys.

You could sip on this. You could mix it. Heck, you could even gift this sucker to a friend as I have, if you're a cheapo. I'm not saying I'm cheap, but, um, heck, I brought you a bottle tonight. So I just, I just think this is something everybody should have on their shelf.

Yeah. I would say, um, get a bottle of this, take it back to your hometown, uh, share it with your friends, uh, do a blind taste test and see how it stands up to some of the other bourbons you like. I think you'd be surprised at how well this does. I think Fred Minick was quite surprised that it finished where it did.

Yeah, it kind of shows you that price and the marketing on stuff aren't always to the truth, right?

And I guarantee you, Heaven Hill's spending zero dollars on marketing.

I mean, it's the same, probably I wouldn't say it's ugly, but it is just an old school label that you would think from a, that you see on your grandfather's shelf from the sixties. It's just, it is what it is. They haven't spent a dime on marketing.

Not in a very long time, I'm sure.

Yeah. This is probably the same label. They just been rolling them out. Nothing wrong with that though. And we've talked about that before, you know, places like big box stores now have gotten into the bourbon game like Costco. that have Barton juice, right? From their masters still, they got a bottle and a single barrel and stuff. You know, it really matters what's inside that bottle. And if the whiskey tastes good in that bottle, do you really care about the story? I personally don't.

I mean, I'm interested in the story, but it's not going to affect the purchase decision. I don't think.

Well, if you tasted the juice, you know, you're like, well, I got to get that right there. That's some good whiskey. And this right here, that's the exact thing about this is that they do have a good story with this if you read into it. But at the same time, the whiskey is good for a cheap price. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, I guess if we want to sum it up, Mike, then it is come to Kentucky, visit some distilleries, grab you some bottles while you're here. Make sure one of those bottles is definitely the heaven, you know, six year old bourbon green label because you can only get it here and it's a great value at $12 a bottle.

No doubt it's a buy all day long. You can gift it, like I said, share it with friends, mix it in cocktails, whatever you want to do. It'll stand up in an old fashioned perfectly well. It's got right amount of spice to it. If you can find a bottle, don't pass it up. This is one that should be in your suitcase or whatever. You're going to get it back home. If you're driving, make sure you're also reading our blog. If you're driving or you're flying, about the summers in Kentucky. And what to do. And what to do because a lot of people don't understand that. They put those things in their rental cars, they'll put them in their car. What happens in the summer heat here?

Pop, pop, pop.

Yeah. I don't know what a- Screw cap won't do it. Screw cap won't do it. But if you have- Of course it'll pop. Of course it will. Even sometimes when they have the seal around them, they'll pop anyway. I mean, I've had one of my truck pop and I got back in there and I was like, man, I hope I don't get pulled over on a way home. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a great one, no doubt about it and you know, it's not the only under $15 bottle you should try. There's a number of others. Maybe we'll start to review some more of those. I think we've done a few in the past.

Yeah. I think there's, I taught under $20 for me is that those good bottles under 20 bucks, JTS bottled bond, JW damp. We've talked about TWS annuals.

So when you get under 15, it's a different, it's, it's like amazing when you get down that far. Like if you get between 20 and 15, that's one class of Bourbons. What about $5 Bourbons? Now, I don't know. I've been down there. But if you get between 10 and 15, it's another group altogether, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

And if you get below 10, well, whatever you get, you deserve. I've drank there, you've drank from there. It's been a long time ago though.

Yeah. Yeah. They're there.

Well, Jim, where can everybody find us on social media?

All right. So you can find us on TikTok. You can find us on Facebook. You can find us on Twitter. We're on YouTube. You know, we also have a Facebook group called the Bourbon Roadies. It's a private group and it's about 2,000 strong now. Good solid people having fun, talking about bourbon, hanging out. We don't tolerate any crap in there, right? We don't take any shit.

No, no, not really. You would just go find yourself a new home. That's why we are the size we are in there. More than likely. We like people just post up photos they want to post up, you know, not take crap from everybody else and have a good time in there.

We don't like when somebody says, Hey, I just got this bottle and have an L6 year green label and it's wonderful. And somebody comes in and shouts at them, quit posting that stuff. You can only get it in Kentucky. Or saying it's a drain pour, you know, or drain pour. Yeah. Because what my tastes are is not everybody else's taste. We're happy to have comments like I tried it. Wasn't my thing. There's nothing wrong with that. But don't don't cut somebody off at the knees.

We got some moderators in there that will take care of you. And if they don't, me and Jim will gladly step up and say, hey, please find your home. But we love our roadies. There's no doubt. We love the group of people we have in there. They're our family. We want to see those photos of birthdays, holidays, celebrations of life, retirements, whatever you want to do. If you're retiring from the military, retiring from Ford, wherever you're retiring from, show us those photos. Show us those photos of your spouse, that bottle that they got you. That's the kind of stuff we want to see. Check out our website, the bourbonroad.com. You can read our reviews in there. You can read articles that we write. Some great information in those articles that you're going to want to read from cities to visit to some just tips on bourbon hunting. Whatever I'm thinking that day, you might learn a little history about moonshine or heck, who knows what I write about that.

Speaking of moonshine, I've been looking at that bottle of moonshine over there. I haven't touched it in a while. Dive in? Dive in. I do like some good moonshine.

Well, Donnie, you'd probably get us some more. We probably know a couple of fellows that can get us some moonshine.

All right. Well, we do two shows a week. We do a short episode like the days where we just review a single bottle and sort of talk about it and tell you whether or not it's something you might want to try. We also do a long episode every Wednesday where we take a deep dive and have guests on sometimes. Sometimes Mike and I pick a topic and just drill into it. It just depends on what we're feeling. Sometimes we're on the road. Mike just got back from an East Coast trip, visited a lot of distilleries. There's a lot of good content there. But we'd love to have you listen to both shows every week. And how can they be sure, Mike, not to miss a show?

Well, you got to scroll up to the top of your page there, of your app you're listening to us on. Hit that subscribe button, scroll on down, hit that five star review. That helps us get into distilleries. Just tell us what you're thinking. Give us a little love. It helps us open those doors up. It's like the heaven doors, like St. Peter has just let us in. The doors of Heaven Hill just open up. Yeah, we got to have a bottle of bourbon in our hand to get in, but we'll get in.

All right. Well, we'd love to have you listen to both shows every week. You know, Mike and I want to also hear what you think about us. If you've got a comment, you've got a suggestion, you have somebody we'd like you'd like us to have on or a bottle you'd like us to review. Reach out to us. You can find me on Instagram at jshannon63. I'm one big chief and we'll see you down. So you know you can't drink whiskey without glassware and Mike and I are extremely pleased to have a sponsor like Premium Bar Products. Premium Bar Products offers direct to consumer the finest whiskey glasses, cocktail glasses, and bar tools with your own personal engraving. I mean, you can write anything you want on these glasses, anything from a company logo to a personal statement. And there are no minimum orders. Their direct consumer platform offers you the opportunity to purchase small quantities of your favorite glass shapes that enhance the pleasure of enjoyment and drinking a whiskey and make it all very positive. They offer the absolute finest trending and handmade glasses as well as a comprehensive range of styles. And all of their items have been designed with purpose, practicality, and longevity in mind. So if you're a bourbon or whiskey group and you need custom logos, you need to reach out to Premium Bar Products. If you're an individual, you just want a few for your bar to impress your friends, to give out as gifts, you need to call Premium Bar Products. They need to be your one and only source for custom glassware. I can tell you right now, the Bourbon Road, that's who we use. Janie and Carson and the team there at Premium Bar Products will take care of you. They'll treat you like family and they'll take care of you with every order.