“A.H. Hirsch Reserve 1974 16 Year Old Bourbon / 2009 Humidor Release

A legendary bottle of bourbon that has had a whole book written about itself:The Best Bourbon You’ll Never Tasteby Charles K Cowdery.

Distilled in Spring 1974, this bourbon is bottled from a single 400 barrel batch commissioned by Adolph H. Hirsch and distilled under contract at Michter’sdistillery (then known as Pennco),just outside Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania. Hirsch was a former Schenleyexecutive who had dealings withMichter’sduring his time there, and it is believed he commissioned the whiskey as financial favour to the distillery, and actually had little plans for its use. So, it lay ageing in the warehouses for much longer than generally expected for a bourbon at the time.

When Michters distillery finally closed in 1989, Hirsch was well into his nineties, and rather than engage in exigency of rehoming what no longer served its purpose to him, he instead sought to find a buyer for it. Fearing the arduous task of finding a buyer for what was considered an over-aged batch of whiskey, Hirsch was fortunate in that one of his old Schenley contacts called Bob Gottesman knew a man in Kentucky who was looking for exactly that,Gordon Hue.

Responsibility for the early bottlingwas entrustedtoJulian Van Winkle III at his Old Commonwealth site in Lawrenceburg.However, hiscreation ofthe Pappy Van Winkle brand and subsequent partnership with the SazeracCompanyin 2002also saw bottling of the Hirsch Reserve moved briefly to Buffalo Trace. Those bottles werefilled in 2003 for the new owners of the Hirsch Reserve, PreissImports, who purchased it from Gordon Hue that year. This is technically a re-bottling of one of those 2003 releases. Produced in 2009, Preiss Imports had their remaining stock of the Buffalo Trace bottles decanted into these hand-blown glasses and presented them mahogany humidor boxes. There were only 1000 made, and the bottling was done at Willett by Kentucky Bourbon Distillers.

In his book Cowdery refers to the bourbon as one of the “best whiskeys I’ve ever tasted.“

Mash bill contains 75% corn, 13% rye, and 12% malted barley.”