In the last few years of writing copious numbers of spirit reviews for Paste, I’ve run across a good number of Old Fitzgerald expressions coming out of Heaven Hill. I was there when the brand transformed in the first place, from its bottom shelf, high-value bonded wheated bourbon version into the beautiful (but far pricier) decanter series that many whiskey geeks know and love today. But I’ve yet to personally see one quite like the new Old Fitzgerald VVS 2024, with which Heaven Hill is celebrating the brand itself.
Typically, Old Fitz can be found in two yearly allocations: the spring batch and the fall batch. In recent years, these have been designated by green labels and black labels, but sharp-eyed collectors may have also noticed a few expressions over the years bearing a deep red (the distillery says maroon, FYI) labels. These are the so-called “very very special” or VVS batches, of which there have only been two to date, in 2018 and 2020. The new Old Fitzgerald VVS 2024 is the third, bring chosen to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Heaven Hill acquiring the historic Bernheim Distillery and Old Fitzgerald brand in 1999.
The liquid inside this bottle is something particularly novel, and its origin goes beyond even what you would expect from the 13 year age statement. In reality, this batch was actually distilled in 1999 only months after the acquisition of the Bernheim Distillery by Heaven Hill. The spirit then spent 13 years in barrels and was emptied at 13 years old after being judged an exceptional example of the house wheated bourbon style. It was subsequently saved for a special occasion, and only now in 2024 has it been bottled. This release is intended solely for Kentucky and is available via the Heaven Hill Bourbon Experience in Bardstown, at the expectedly high price point of $230. That makes it only slightly less expensive than the fall 2022 expression that was 19 years old, but the additional novelty here makes the price easier to understand.
This one will understandably be hard to come by, to the point that I don’t believe there are actually any press images out there for it yet, forcing me to use an image of an earlier VVS Old Fitz release above. We do have the following label image, though:
