A 9 year old expression of wheated bourbon from Heaven Hill bottled as part of their highly sought after Old Fitzgerald decanter series. This Fall 2018 edition is bottled in bond at 100 proof.

Old Fitzgerald

The origins of the Old Fitzgerald name are shrouded in mystery and marketing lore. The brand was first trademarked in 1870 by S.C. Herbst, a Wisconsin-based rectifier who reserved the Old Fitzgerald name for his finest barrels. Many of these were sourced from Kentucky distilleries—particularly those using pot stills, such as Old Taylor. Initially, Old Fitzgerald was marketed exclusively to private clubs and to first-class passengers on railroads and steamships.

In 1900, Herbst acquired the Old Judge Distillery in Franklin County, Kentucky, where he began producing his Old Fitzgerald whiskies. The distillery’s operations ceased during Prohibition, but the W.L. Weller Company later acquired the Old Fitzgerald name for bottling medicinal whiskey stocks. When Prohibition ended, W.L. Weller—led by Julian “Pappy” Van Winkle—built the Stitzel-Weller Distillery in Louisville, opening in 1935. Old Fitzgerald became its flagship brand, with pre-1939 bottlings containing sourced whiskey from pre-Prohibition stocks and later releases featuring the distillery’s own wheated mash bill bourbon.

Pappy Van Winkle insisted that every Old Fitzgerald expression meet the Bottled-in-Bond minimum of 100 proof, a standard that became part of the brand’s identity. Through the following decades, Old Fitzgerald earned its reputation as one of the most respected names in American whiskey. In 1972, the Stitzel-Weller Distillery was sold to Norton Simon, and as consumer demand for aged bourbon declined, the brand’s prominence faded. The distillery was closed in 1992 under United Distillers, which continued bottling remaining stocks before selling the Old Fitzgerald brand to Heaven Hill in 1999.

Under Heaven Hill’s ownership, Old Fitzgerald remained a quiet part of the portfolio until spring 2018, when the company launched the first Old Fitzgerald Bottled-in-Bond Decanter—an 11-year-old wheated bourbon presented in a glass decanter modeled after Stitzel-Weller’s original 1960s design. The series has since become a modern collectible, featuring age statements up to 19 years old.

Today, Old Fitzgerald stands as one of the most coveted names in bourbon, prized both for its historic Stitzel-Weller-era bottlings and its new Heaven Hill–produced releases. In 2025, Heaven Hill expanded the line with a 7-Year-Old Bottled-in-Bond expression, reaffirming Old Fitzgerald’s place as an accessible yet high-quality offering in the modern bourbon landscape.