Heaven Hill Distillery tells BourbonBlog.com that the 2020 limited edition release of Parker’s Heritage Collection 10 Year Old Heavy Char Bourbon. The 14th edition will ship nationally in September at an SRP of $120.00 and will be avaliable in retail starting oin October.
This 14th edition continues the interaction of barrel char across varying mashbills, this time with Heaven Hill’s traditional Bourbon mashbill of 78% corn, 12% malted barley, and 10% rye. It is aged in heavy char (Level 5) barrels, as opposed to the customary Level 3 for Heaven Hill, the resulting flavors carry intensified notes of the traditional Bourbon. Consisting of 102 barrels aged on the sixth floor of rickhouse Y for 10 years.
Heaven Hills says heavy char brings forth a caramel and maple sweetness, as well as slight smokiness developed after 40 Kentucky seasons in the barrel.
They say the second heavy char edition of the series advances the study of how a more intense char allows the liquid to penetrate deeper into each barrel stave and the effects on the resulting flavor. Bottled at 120 proof (60% abv) and non-chill filtered to preserve all the flavor compounds, this Bourbon showcases the broad range of Heaven Hill Distillery’s 1.8 million barrels of aging inventory.
The late Heaven Hill Master Distiller Parker Beam
The late Heaven Hill Master Distiller Parker Beam (pictured below with BourbonBlog’s Tom Fischer), for whom the acclaimed series is named, was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (also called ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease) in 2010. The past seven editions from 2013-2019, including the “Promise of Hope” Bourbon, the “Original Batch” Straight Wheat Whiskey, the Kentucky Straight Malt Whiskey, the 24-Year-Old Bottled-in-Bond Bourbon, the 11-Year-Old Single Barrel, Orange Curaçao-finished Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, and Heavy Char Rye Whiskey, respectively, have raised more than one million dollars toward ALS research and patient care through contributions made by Heaven Hill for each bottle purchased. With the 2020 Heavy Char Bourbon edition, Heaven Hill will again contribute a portion of the proceeds from each bottle sold to the ALS Association.