Heaven Hill Double Mash Bourbon Review

Tasting Notes & Verdict

When Heaven Hill discontinued the 6-Year Green Label, I was genuinely interested in what would come next.

The obvious successor seemed to be Heaven Hill's 7-Year Bottled-in-Bond. The problem was, at the time, I was living in Northern Virginia, and Virginia's control-state system meant I wasn't seeing it on shelves. I could find bottles across the river in D.C., but usually at prices high enough that I wasn't willing to take the chance.

Then I took a trip to Dallas.

While bourbon hunting for the Whiskey Happens YouTube channel with a soon-to-be friend, I managed to score three bottles of the Heaven Hill 7-Year Bottled-in-Bond. I hadn't tasted it yet. I was buying entirely on the strength of my experience with Green Label and the assumption that the new 7-year expression would carry that torch.

It didn't.

I opened one bottle and was severely disappointed. The other two sat around until I eventually traded them away, and it probably took me close to a year to finish the bottle I had opened.

So understand something before we get into this review: I did not approach Heaven Hill Double Mash as a Heaven Hill fanboy looking for a reason to love another bottle. If anything, I came into this one skeptical.

What Exactly Is "Double Mash"?

First, let's clear up something that confused me initially.

This isn't a bourye. There's no rye whiskey being blended with bourbon here, and "Double Mash" doesn't mean Heaven Hill mashed the whiskey twice.

Instead, Heaven Hill combines two different bourbon mash bills. Two-thirds of the blend comes from its traditional rye-recipe bourbon mash bill, while the remaining third comes from its wheated bourbon mash bill.

That distinction matters. When I first heard "rye recipe," my brain immediately went to rye whiskey. That isn't what we're talking about. Both components are bourbon. The difference is the secondary grain — one uses rye, the other wheat.

Both were distilled during the same season, both were aged for nine years, and the resulting whiskey is bottled at 100 proof under the Bottled-in-Bond designation.

Heaven Hill has confirmed this is a limited nationwide release, arriving in stores beginning this month at a suggested retail of $49.99. "Limited" from a producer this size doesn't always mean rare, but it does mean this isn't the kind of bottle you leave for next time you're at the store — if you want one, it's worth calling around now rather than waiting to stumble on it.

Which left me with one question before I ever tasted it: why?

Wheated bourbon is already an incredibly popular category. Why take the softer, sweeter characteristics people associate with wheated bourbon and blend them back into Heaven Hill's traditional bourbon? Are we creating something new? Or are we just diluting two perfectly good ideas into one?

The Bottle

Distillery: Heaven Hill

Release: August 2026, limited quantities nationwide

Classification: Bottled-in-Bond

Proof: 100

Age: 9 Years

Mash Bill: A blend of two bourbon mash bills — two-thirds Heaven Hill's traditional rye-recipe bourbon (78% corn, 10% rye, 12% malted barley) and one-third its wheated bourbon (68% corn, 20% wheat, 12% malted barley), both distilled in the same season and aged together for nine years.

MSRP: $49.99

First Impression: Immediately familiar. Before anything else, this smells like Heaven Hill. My first association was actually the old 6-Year Green Label — I wouldn't call them identical, but there's an ancestral connection, a cousin or relative somewhere in the family tree. There's fruit on the nose, though initially it's fairly faint, and considering this was a freshly cracked bottle, I wasn't interested in beating the glass into submission looking for notes. So I took a sip.

On the Palate: Damn it — I like it, and I wasn't expecting that reaction. The first thing that absolutely jumped off my tongue was an unusual combination that took a moment to put into words: orange zest folded into maple syrup. Not orange-flavored syrup, not generic citrus and sweetness — specifically the brightness and slight bitterness of fresh orange zest worked into rich maple syrup. On the second sip, the maple moved toward honey, followed by white pepper, with enough spice to announce itself without ever taking control. The body is relatively thin, and that's not a criticism — the whiskey arrives brightly, makes its point, and dissipates quickly, and as the initial flavors recede, that restrained pepper comes through as warmth rather than heat.

The Last Sip: The finish is dry. As the whiskey settles, I get something closer to apricot preserves, followed by a little more rye-driven spice, and with additional air, just a touch of peanut and mint — the kind of note that could easily become distracting in another whiskey but never gets close to that here. That may be the word I keep coming back to with Double Mash: balanced. Nothing is screaming for attention.

Final Thoughts

That was my question before tasting it — why does this exist — and frankly, I think it's still one of the more interesting questions surrounding this bottle.

We're entering a very different bourbon market than the one we had during the height of the bourbon boom. Inventory is increasing, producers have mature whiskey available, and I suspect we're going to see considerably more creative blending as distilleries figure out what to do with barrels that may be perfectly good whiskey but don't necessarily fit neatly into an existing flagship profile. Double Mash may be an early example of what that looks like from a major Kentucky producer.

And Heaven Hill is particularly well suited to play around with something like this — this is a company that can introduce an expression, let it disappear, and revisit the idea fifteen years later to an entirely new wave of enthusiasm. Whether Double Mash becomes an enduring part of the portfolio or simply an interesting chapter remains to be seen. But the important part is this: the blend works.

If you're already a Heaven Hill fan, this is a buy — I don't think there's much debate necessary. But I'm actually more interested in recommending it to the person who isn't automatically buying everything Heaven Hill releases, because I'm that person. I don't particularly care for the 7-Year Bottled-in-Bond, and I came into this bottle carrying that history with me. Double Mash won me over on the first pour.

And then there's the basic consumer math: nine years old, 100 proof, Bottled-in-Bond, around $50. In the current bourbon market, that's awfully difficult to argue with.

I started this pour wondering why Heaven Hill needed to make Double Mash. I finished it thinking the better question might be: why wouldn't they?

Recommendation

🟢 Buy