Elijah Craig 20 Year Old Single Barrel Bourbon El Cerrito Liquor

It was fall 2011 when Heaven Hill decided to honor the 20th anniversary of the Kentucky Bourbon Festival with a special, one barrel bottling of the Elijah Craig 20 Year Old Single Barrel Bourbon. This barrel would soon define award-winning bourbon. Whisky Advocate Magazine named this single barrel “American Whiskey of the Year”. Editor and Publisher John Hansell called the award-winning bourbon, “seamless, richly textured and impeccably balanced.”

Only a handful of barrels have been allowed to age this long. Heaven Hill is proud to offer this unique bourbon that was pulled from the same lot as the award-winning barrel in limited quantties. Raise your glass to excellence.

Heaven Hill was established by a group of private investors in 1935, following the repeal of Prohibition a few years earlier. Among the founders were distiller, Joseph L. Beam, and a member of the Shapira family. As the company grew, the Shapira’s eventually acquired sole ownership of it, and their descendants still run it today. In a similar dynastic vein, Joe Beam remained master distiller despite the Shapira takeover, and members of his family have occupied the role ever since. This was produced at the Old Heavenhill Springs distillery, later renamed simply Heaven Hill, which was located in Bardstown, Kentucky.

It was sadly lost in a devastating fire in 1996, and bourbon made there has become increasingly sought after as the years’ pass. The company had no distillery for the next three years but was permitted to rent stills at Jim Beam and Brown-Forman in order to maintain production. They eventually acquired the newly refurbished Bernheim distillery from Diageo in 1999, which has been their home ever since. Pre-fire distilled Heaven Hill Bourbons are increasingly soughtafter.