OLD FITZGERALD BiB
Spring 2025MASH BILL – 68% corn, 20% wheat, 12% malted barley
PROOF – 100
AGE – 7 years
DISTILLERY – Heaven Hill
PRICE – $56
WORTH BUYING? – Yes
Fair Warning: Whiskey rant ahead. If you’re not in the mood, I absolutely understand. Scroll down to the tasting notes. Otherwise, pour yourself a glass of something you paid too much for and enjoy—if you can! 😉🥃
I was able to get this bottle at just under the msrp of $59.99, otherwise I’d have surely skipped it. Why? Pure eyebrow-cocked annoyance at the pathetically desperate attempts by retailers to cling to the sputtering bourbon boom. Look what a quick Google reveals:
In just that one screenshot of the first five offers—a fraction of the total Google turns up—we see a low of $100 and a high of $500. We also have someone selling the 2021 8 Year Old Fitz Decanter Series limited release for $400, a full $100 cheaper than what Cask Cartel is asking for the current 7 Year. But this 7 Year is intended by Heaven Hill to be a new shelf standard, not a limited specialty item like the Decanter Series—itself a major victim of bourbon boomerism. I assume retailers are banking on there being enough suckers out there—and they’re likely quite right about that—who won’t clock the difference between the limited Decanter Series and this new standard offering. If the online pirates can cash in on the uninformed in these early days of the 7 Year’s release, they certainly will. That’s capitalism doing what capitalism does. It’s not so much that it pays to be smart, but that the stupid pay.
I enjoyed the 2021 8 Year Old Fitz Decanter release, as well as the 2020 14 Year. Heaven Hill tended to price these at $10 per year back then, and I was lucky to find them both near that. I also have a bottle of the 2019 15 Year in the bunker. I expect I’ll enjoy that one too. They’re good wheated bourbons. At $80 the 8 Year was worth it—much more so than the 14 Year, which, at the $175 I paid, was not worth it.
Given this “new” 7 Year is Bottled in Bond at 100 proof just like all the Decanter releases, what is the real difference between this “standard” offering and the “limited” Decanter Series? Notably in that regard, the current Spring 2025 Decanter Series release is aged 9 years—a mere 2 years older than the new standard variation. 🤔
Similarly, what’s the difference between this new Old Fitz 7 Year and the standard Larceny, which shares the same wheated mash bill? The obvious difference is that Larceny is neither Bottled in Bond nor age-stated. It comes in at 92 proof and the age is said by Heaven Hill to be a blend of bourbons aged 6 to 12 years. Larceny costs $30. Will this mere 7-year Old Fitz taste twice as good as Larceny? Are we paying $30 for the bourbon, and $30 for the towering bottle? And a 700ml bottle at that, not even the usual 750ml. This just keeps getting worse!
As the bourbon boom continues its gradual bust, more and more heritage brands are putting out age stated whiskeys again. They’ve got more whiskey aging in their warehouses than the market can stomach. So they’re throwing us bones we’ve always said we wanted, like age statements at better prices—key word better. As opposed to actually good. At $60 msrp, this 7-year BiB is still twice the cost of other pre-2018 BiB bourbons, like Henry McKenna 10 Year ($30 back then) or Heaven Hill’s namesake 6 Year BiB that went for $15 or so.
But Heaven Hill is not generously rolling back prices. They’re responding to circumstances and striving to make a buck while they still can. And they are aided by the many whiskey influencers who have acquiesced to calling things like this 7 Year “a deal by current standards.” I don’t agree. This is not a deal. Not for the consumer anyway. It’s overpriced bourbon in a genuinely elegant bottle. But I would guess it’s a good deal for Heaven Hill. They’re going to make their money off this stuff. And as noted, for the moment at least, it’s a deal for the retail pirates, preying upon the FOMO-fueled bourbon stupid-gentsia.
Okay. Enough carping. (For the moment!) Let’s taste the stuff.
This is the first pour out of the bottle. I’ve just uncorked it, and let it rest a good 45 minutes in a traditional Glencairn before taking these first sips. Here are the notes in brief:
COLOR – pale to medium orange-ambers
NOSE – at once soft and edgy, with a chocolatey caramel most prominent up front, then sweet and dry oak, chocolate cake, rustic cherry, a dollop of syrupy canned apricot, dry pie crust, vanilla ice cream
TASTE – very like the nose, with all those notes only mixed differently, emphasizing more oak around the chocolatey caramel
FINISH – oak, chocolatey caramel, dried cherry and apricot, vanilla icing, oak tannin, a bit of mint
OVERALL – an excellent wheated bourbon, especially for fans of oak and chocolate
There’s my point of view on the leaky bourbon boom and its many participants, and there’s the bourbon itself. This bourbon is good.
There’s a dryness to the oak and pie crust notes that might be too dry for some. But I enjoy their subtle sweetness, especially next to the dark chocolate notes. The sweeter fruit and caramel notes are present enough to add complexity. Young wheated bourbons can sometimes go a bit astringent. But this one seems to have aged just past that mark of youth, opening up to a broader maturity.
Altogether this Old Fitz comes across with a kind of rustic refinement, like a well-appointed mountain cabin retreat. I’d love to sip this by the hearth or on the porch of some cabin up in the Sierra Nevada mountains, around Lake Tahoe. My family still lives up near there, so I might indeed be able to make that happen!
I’m happy with it, and with the price I paid for it. I find the packaging genuinely attractive, more so in fact than the Decanter Series. There is something moderne about the tall sleek bottle, in a 1920s New York sort of way. The more decanter-like Decanter Series bottle feels much more southern plantation—excessive, frilly, trying just a bit too hard.
So if you find this at msrp or less, and you enjoy wheated bourbons, I absolutely recommend it. Otherwise I wouldn’t sweat it. It’s a big beautiful world of whiskey out there these days. And it’s come time again for the consumer to be back in charge. We do ultimately have the power of our wallets, if not always the will to keep them pocketed. And that’s on us. But pirate pricing is on the pirates, and their time is up. We can afford to enjoy plenty of good bourbon now, at a wide range of prices, without having to reward the pirates.
Cheers!
Last Call
Before wrapping this up, I poured a bit of a Larceny Barrel Proof SiB I had on hand. Again, same mash bill. And in this case the age is stated at 8 years, and the proof is higher at 115.4. So this isn’t an even comparison. But it might provide at least some insight into the Old Fitz / Larceny question.
On the nose, both bourbons share a familial dryness. The Larceny is immediately drier, with only the faintest whiff of apricot fruitiness. But its pie crust note has a nice butteriness that the Old Fitz lacks.
On the taste, still only subtle fruit from the Larceny—apricot and now a bit of cherry—but some very nice caramel and chocolate fudge notes adding their own brand of sweetness to the oak and pie crust aspects. The 100-proof Old Fitz comes across rather weakly in the wake of the Larceny’s substantial 115.4 proof. As if compelled, the Old Fitz now swerves more into its drier side as well, allowing its fruit and candy sweetness to subside a bit.
Interesting. Tasted side by side, despite their differences, these are very much equivalent experiences. Not equal, but equitable. That said, the Old Fitz is the cheaper, and, when tasted alone, the more complex option. So, Old Fitz 7 Year for the win.
Cheers!
The Right Spirit 