Heaven Hill | The Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails

Brands, located near Bardstown, Kentucky, is one of the biggest liquor companies in the United States. Founded shortly after Prohibition by the Shapira family and outside investors, the company took its name from William Heavenhill, a farmer who, more than a century earlier, had worked the land where the company was located. A newcomer to the whisky industry, Heaven Hill hired distillers from the Beam family to oversee production. This line of Beams, from the same extended family as the namesake competitor (now Beam-Suntory), have held key positions at Heaven Hill ever since.Hungry for revenue in an industry where products often age for lengthy periods, Heaven Hill sold its first whiskies and other spirits to outside distributors who aged and branded them however they saw fit. As is common for new distilleries, some of Heaven Hill’s own early brands, such as Bourbon Falls, were relatively young (about two years old) and were eventually discontinued. As the company matured and developed more of its own brands, however, it was able to provide older products, including Evan Williams and Elijah Craig bourbons, both named after Kentucky settlers. Over the years, it also acquired brands of whisky, rum, gin, vodka, and various liqueurs from its competitors, including Rittenhouse Rye, Dubonnet, Admiral Nelson’s, and Hpnotiq, among others. By the 1970s, the Shapira family had bought out its various partners and took full control of the company.

In the early 2000s, as the American whisky market picked up, a number of the company’s miscellaneous old whisky brands, such as Rittenhouse rye and Mellow Corn corn whisky, suddenly began generating a good deal of interest, and its extensive stocks of long-aged bourbon and rye proved to be invaluable. As of 2019, it remained the largest independent, family-owned distillery in the United States.