Last Night's Tipple

Bourbon distilleries are notorious for bottling products under the name of all-but-fictional distillery names. Knob Creek is not distilled by the Knob Creek Distillery; it's distilled by Jim Beam. Old Grand-Dad is not distilled by the Old Grand-Dad Distillery; it's also distilled by Jim Beam. And Old Fitzgerald Bottled-in-Bond is not distilled by the Old Fitzgerald Distillery. It has been distilled by many different companies, most recently by Heaven Hill. One nice thing about Bourbon that's bottled in bond, though, is that the law requires that the Distilled Spirits Producer (DSP) number of the producing and bottling distillery to be printed on the label. A company can invent whatever half-assed DBA name they want for their whiskey, but the DSP number is definitive. In the case of my bottle of Old Fitz BIB, the label says that it was distilled at DSP-KY-1 and bottled at DSP-KY-31. With a little research, I found that DSP-KY-1 is the Bernheim Distillery (owned by Heaven Hill) in Louisville and that DSP-KY-31 is the Heaven Hill Distillery in Bardstown. The Bardstown distillery burned in 1996, but Heaven Hill still has bonded warehouses and bottling facilities there. If you ever happen to see a bottle of Old Fitz or anything else with DSP-KY-16 on the label, buy it: that means that it was produced at the old Stitzel-Weller Distillery, which is renowned for its quality but which closed in 1992.

It's amazing how much Old Fitz BIB smells like Crown Royal: light vanilla and toffee aromas that are very appetizing. It has a lot more body than Crown Royal, though, and it has a lot more flavor, mostly something grainy and yeasty, but with some orange peel. It's also a good bit rough around the edges, which makes since because it's young and 100 proof. Not the best Bourbon in the world, but pretty good for $14 a fifth.