Heaven Hill 90th Anniversary Review: Worth $150?

Heaven Hill 90th Anniversary delivers rich oak, warm spice, and a creamy mouthfeel, but its roughly $140 to $150 price stretches the value. We enjoyed this 107-proof bourbon and wanted another pour. We also expected a bigger step up from Heaven Hill’s everyday bottles at that price.

At a glance

• Proof: 107
• Age: About 9 years and 8 months
• Blend: Two bourbons, including 30% heavy-char bourbon for deeper oak influence
• Mash bill cited: 70% corn, 10% rye, and 12% malted barley
• Release: Late 2025; our friend Jeff found it in early 2026
• Price: Around $125 MSRP; Jeff’s bottle was roughly $140 with tax, possibly closer to $150
• Ratings: Tom gave it a double blue on our scale. Steve also gave it a double blue.

The anniversary box raises expectations

This bottle marks Heaven Hill’s 90-year legacy. The anniversary refers to the distillery’s history, not the bourbon’s age.

The presentation follows the familiar Heaven Hill special-release approach: a bottle in a branded box. It looks fine, but we didn’t find anything especially impressive about it. Those boxes start blending together when there isn’t a big age statement setting one apart.

We suspect some of the premium pays for that packaging. Bourbon drinkers chase boxed bottles and tubes, but the presentation still needs a pour that earns the price.

Nose: seasoned oak, burnt caramel, and plum

The oak shows up immediately. We get seasoned wood, char, and a toasted note, followed by vanilla and spice. There’s caramel too, with a slightly burnt edge that gives it more character.

A darker fruit note sits underneath. Plum is the closest match, and one of us gets something like plum wine. It isn’t the usual straightforward sweet bourbon nose.

The bourbon has a dark amber color, and the nose has plenty of layers. It smells bigger than we expected at this proof, with enough depth to make us eager for the first sip.

Palate: warm baking spice and a creamy coating

Warm baking spice leads the first sip, with a little vanilla bean behind it. The fruit shifts away from the plum we smelled.

One of us gets a wine-grape flavor, closer to Welch’s or Concord grape. The other gets baked apple, possibly because the cinnamon-like spice pulls the flavor in that direction.

Cola appears toward the back of the palate. It has a less sugary, slightly bitter character, closer to Coke Zero than a sweet regular Coke. We also considered RC, but Coke Zero fit better as we kept tasting.

The texture is a highlight. It coats the palate without feeling especially oily. We’d call it creamy, like the coating left after a glass of milk.

That richness helps the flavors stay balanced. The spice complements the grape sweetness, while the baked-apple and vanilla notes have room to show through.

Finish: cream soda, cherry, and lingering spice

The cola note moves toward cream soda on the finish, with a little burnt caramel. There’s also a slight cherry bite at the end, though we wouldn’t call it cherry cola.

Spice stays with us throughout the finish. It becomes harder to name than the baking spice on the first sip, but it keeps the sweet-to-spicy transition interesting.

Despite the full nose and rich texture, this drinks below its stated proof. To us, it feels closer to 100 proof, with some of that bottled-in-bond character. We wanted a little more of the chest-hitting kick we enjoy.

Heaven Hill Bottled-in-Bond sets a tough baseline

Heaven Hill Bottled-in-Bond is a go-to for one of us. This anniversary release offers more flavor, and we both think it’s a step above that bottle.

The harder question is how large that step feels. We don’t get the jump we hoped for from a premium, limited anniversary release. Better bourbon doesn’t automatically make the price difference feel right.

It almost competes with Elijah Craig Barrel Proof on flavor, but without the barrel-proof punch. We love our barrel-proof bourbons, so that missing kick matters to us here.

Value: $100 feels right; $150 is harder

Tom puts the flavor value at about $100 a bottle. At that price, we’d happily buy it. Around $150, we struggle, even though we both enjoyed the pour.

We also talked about our loose $10-per-year yardstick. At nearly 10 years old, that points us toward the same price. It isn’t a rule, but it helps explain why the anniversary premium feels steep.

Eagle Rare 10 Year makes that comparison difficult. We put its MSRP around $40, although finding it there is another matter. The $80 to $100 prices we discussed still felt acceptable to us.

Tincup 10 Year was the other comparison, at about $50. That’s a value bomb in this conversation, and it makes Heaven Hill’s asking price tougher to swallow.

Steve was more open to picking up the anniversary bottle if he happened across it. He liked the nose, the flavor, and the depth from the heavy char enough to call it a possible sleeper. Still, we both landed on double blue rather than the red we’d hoped it might earn.

Availability: Jeff found one, but we haven’t seen it locally

Jeff found this bottle for us, but neither of us had seen one on a shelf. We hadn’t been hunting it hard, either.

We had seen it online through Seelbach’s and a couple of other places, with asking prices we thought were excessive. One friend finding a bottle doesn’t make it an easy local pickup.

We think the value may help explain why this release gets overlooked. It also lacks the big age statement of Heaven Hill’s 20-, 21-, or 22-year releases. An extra anniversary release may attract less attention than those older annual bottles.

A good pour we wouldn’t chase

We wouldn’t put real effort into hunting this one. It isn’t our bourbon of the year or the affordable unicorn we hoped to find. There’s still plenty here to enjoy, and we’d gladly accept another pour, but we don’t feel a need to secure a bottle.