This is the tenth year of Heaven Hill's Parker's Heritage Collection (If you don't know the history, I recently recapped all of the Parker's Heritage Collection bottlings). This year's bottling is a 24 year old bottled in bond bourbon distilled at the pre-fire Heaven Hill distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky.There are two releases of this year's bourbon: one was distilled in the Fall 1990 and the other in the Spring of 1991. I will be tasting the Fall 1990 release.
Parker's Heritage Collection 2016, 24 years old, 50% abv ($250)
The nose starts with light caramel and honey, Evan Williams like, and then develops nice oaky/leather notes. The palate comes on strong and oaky with a nice caramel in the back. The finish is strongly bitter.
The nose and palate on this bourbon are very strong and hearken back to the good old days of Parker's. The only flaw is in the finish which is too bitter. The good news is that even with the bitter finish, this is tasty stuff and the best Parker's Heritage release in years. The bad news is the price.
Thanks to Chris Dion for the sample.
The price is steep, but I was almost pleasantly surprised by it, given the 27 yr was $200 when it was released in 2008. I expected 8 years + massive increase in bourbon mania to lead to a $400-$500 MSRP.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point. However, the chances of seeing this on the shelf will be slim unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteAlready above $500 secondary :-O
ReplyDelete