HEAVEN HILL’S LARCENY BOURBON

Often when doing research for the restaurant or website, I will find a back-story on a brand that I think is interesting and I’ll have to do a bit more research to do the story justice when talking to my guests. Larceny very well may have the most interesting of those stories.

First, let’s take a refresher law course. Larceny, in a legal sense, is “the wrongful acquisition of the personal property of another person,” or in layman’s terms: stealing. When you look at the bottle that Larceny bourbon is sold in, there are many keys and a keyhole. Above the name, you see the name “John E. Fitzgerald.” If you take the logical route, you would assume that Mr. Fitzgerald is a distiller, and this product bears his name because he was involved in some way.

That’s what John would want you to think.

In all actuality, John Fitzgerald was a treasury agent with keys to many of the warehouses in Frankfort, KY. He would go into the warehouses in the middle of the night, take some of their finest product , and sell it to steamboat crews, rail crews, and private clubs. When the distillers caught onto Mr. Fitzgerald’s actions, they realized that he had a good eye for picking out the best barrels, so the best barrels were then called the “Fitzgerald Barrels.”

HEAVEN HILL’S LARCENY BOURBON TASTING NOTES

Now that you have the backstory behind the name and the label on the bottle, we can start talking about what is inside. The small grain in this bourbon is wheat, so in theory, it shouldn’t be too spicy.. but that is where I had to throw every pre-conception I had about this bourbon out the window.

Although this whiskey is wheated and a relatively cool 92 proof, I was immediately stunned by the spice flavors. I had to reach for the water and use  a bit to tame the stuff before I could really pinpoint what I was tasting. This is a spicy, oaky bourbon that defies expectations. This is an interesting one, so I would recommend you try it in a bar before picking up a bottle.

OUR VERDICT