Heaven Hill Bottles Final Pours From a Historic Kentucky Rickhouse Before It Goes Dark

Heaven Hill’s Deatsville, Kentucky campus. (Photos: Heaven Hill)

On Thursday, Heaven Hill Distillery announced the release of Heaven Hill Deatsville 13-Year-Old Bourbon Whiskey, a limited expression bottled from 17 barrels aged on the third floor of Rickhouse AA at its Deatsville, Kentucky campus — a site the company says will transition out of active aging within the next 12 to 24 months.

The release carries a suggested retail price of $199.99 and marks the first in a planned series of commemorative releases tied to the Deatsville campus, with additional expressions and events scheduled through 2027.

Heaven Hill Deatsville 13-Year-Old Bourbon is distilled from Heaven Hill’s standard bourbon mashbill of 78% corn, 10% rye and 12% malted barley. The liquid spent its full 13-year maturation at the Deatsville campus before bottling.

The release comes from 17 barrels pulled from the third floor of Rickhouse AA. Upper-floor barrels typically experience greater temperature swings than lower floors, which tends to drive higher rates of extraction from the wood and more pronounced oak influence over time.

Heaven Hill Deatsville Bourbon

“For nearly a century, Heaven Hill has believed that great Bourbon is made by giving barrels the time, space and natural airflow they need to become themselves,” Susan Wahl, vice president of American Whiskey at Heaven Hill, said in a news release “This release pays tribute to the barrels, brands, and people who brought those rickhouses to life.”

About Heaven Hill’s Deatsville Campus

The Deatsville site sits on the grounds of the former T.W. Samuels Distillery, a shuttered operation that Heaven Hill took over in the early 1980s. The campus comprises nine rickhouses with a combined capacity of 167,000 barrels.

What distinguishes Deatsville within Heaven Hill’s aging portfolio is its architecture. The site is the only Heaven Hill barrel aging campus built with tiered roof construction — a design that creates a natural stack effect, drawing cooler air in through lower openings as warm air escapes through the roof. Heaven Hill says this airflow pattern produces subtle but consistent differences in maturation character compared to its other aging sites.

Heaven Hill ages whiskey across six distinct warehouse campuses in Kentucky. Each site is characterized by differences in structure, airflow and environment that the company factors into its blending and single-site releases.

Deatsville’s Role in Heaven Hill’s History

The campus has a documented connection to Parker’s Heritage Collection, Heaven Hill’s annual limited release series named for the late master distiller Parker Beam. The 7th Edition “Promise of Hope” and the 11th Edition Single Barrel release both drew from Deatsville stock, selections Beam made himself based on his familiarity with the site’s aging profile.

Barrels from Deatsville also contributed to multiple Heaven Hill expressions over the decades, though the company has not specified which ongoing products drew from the campus.

What Comes Next for the Site

Heaven Hill says all nine Deatsville rickhouses will shift to “regauge-only” status as active aging winds down. Regauging is a method of calculating the contents of a barrel of whiskey after it’s spent some time maturing. Essentially, the warehouses will no longer receive newly filled barrels. The buildings will remain standing, but arrels currently aging at Deatsville will move to other Heaven Hill sites, and the company says future releases may note Deatsville as a partial maturation location.

Heaven Hill is offering a Deatsville Tour and Tasting experience through its Heaven Hill Bourbon Experience platform. The tour covers two rickhouse sites and includes early access to the Deatsville 13-Year-Old. Tickets go on sale March 15.