Bourbon: Older is better!

I'm sipping some bourbon tonight, as I am wont to do.

When I mix, as is often the case these days, I mix rye-flavored bourbon and straight rye with (diet) ginger ale, and wheat-flavored bourbon with (diet) cola. But, I often sip my whiskey "neat" -- no ice, nada, nothing but a glass -- before blending.

I opened from my 'bunker' a bottle of Old Heaven Hill Bottled In Bond (BIB) from (via bottle markings and strip-stamp seal) circa 1984 two nights ago. It is fabulous. So much so, that I am hesitant to mix it with ginger ale. So, today I went and bought some more modern OHHBIB (bottled c. 2004). Thus, these are the same whiskey, 20 years apart. Before mixing the latter bottle tonight, of course, I tasted it neat. Two things stood out:

• 1) Heaven Hill does a remarkable job of straight-lining their taste profile over decades. This is obviously the same whiskey;
• 2) the older bottle, almost certainly barreled at a lower proof (in c. 1980) than the modern bottle (barreled approx. 2000), has a richer, more refined finish. It is marginally better whiskey, though both are perfect for the way in which I use them -- as mixer.

Thus, confirmed again a thesis I have argued during my several years of bourbon appreciation: if a specific brand spans a significant number of years till today, older versions of it are better.

There are a multitude of exceptional-quality, and exceptional-value bourbons today -- my friend Chuck Cowdery, who literally wrote the book on bourbon ("Bourbon, Straight"), would claim today is bourbon's 'golden age' -- but bourbons which have a pedigree spanning, say, decades, were better before than they are now.

The good news is that they ain't bad now!