Russell’s Reserve 13 is Back + Old Fitzgerald 7-Year-Old BiB Review

Today on the Bourbon Bytes Podcast, Russell's Reserve 13 is back and at the highest proof ever. Stitzel-Weller launches their first product in over 30 years. Laphroaig is bringing a fan favorite whiskey to Cast Strength. And I review the new Old Fitzgerald seven-year bottled in bond bourbon. Hello everyone and welcome back to the Bourbon Bytes podcast. I'm your host Clifton and today we have some really fun whiskey to review. Not only that, but some breaking news

stories from across the industry we have to talk about. But before I get into all that, I wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who has shown their support for the relaunch of the podcast. It really means a lot seeing you guys get excited about it. I'm seeing it on Discord, on Facebook, your reviews, and it just really means a lot to me. So it makes me feel like this was the right decision to start this podcast back up and hopefully you guys enjoy this

season. So if you missed last week's episode, it was my season two launch after about three years of not making a podcast and I am so glad to be back. I do want to shout out a couple of people in particular that left reviews on Apple Podcasts. I know you guys listen across tons of different platforms and if you ever see the option to rate or review, it would mean a lot to me. It definitely helps get the word out by the channel and it helps boost it on the rankings of that particular platform.

And the first one of these reviews comes from our good friend MC. She is a bourbon wrench here on the channel. She says that when you need your whiskey news distilled down to 30 minutes or less, Clifton is my go to. Fast and fun bites of news that fit into a short commute served weekly for season two on Thursdays. I appreciate that, Emily. Thank you so much. I'm so glad that you're enjoying the series. I also want to give a shout out to Santiago. They say it's back. So happy the

podcast is back. Excited to see where it goes. So I really do appreciate your reviews, whatever platform you guys are on. It does mean a lot and I'm always looking for feedback. So if you have any suggestions, please feel free to review me on your favorite platform. But like I said, we have lots of fun breaking news. Literally, some of these just came in moments before recording this podcast. The biggest story of them all, I think we all want to hear about is the new Russell's Reserve

13. Yes, they are making a second official release of Russell's Reserve 13. I thought that the previous batches were considered like the second and third and fourth releases, but those all did come out within the same year. So this is the 2025 Russell's Reserve 13 version 2.0. They actually considered a reimagining of the 2021 release. This one comes in at 123.8 proof. Of course, it's non chill filtered and it is available coming soon, particularly if you live in Kentucky. They

are doing a gathering of whiskey connoisseurs is what they're calling it. And they're inviting folks to come out on June 24th to have a first taste of Russell's Reserve 13. There will be a cocktail reception and a following flight of all the Russell's Reserve releases, including Russell's 10, Russell's 10 single barrel, Russell's single barrel rye, Russell's 13. and a Wild Turkey Private Selection bourbon. So if you are in the area and you're interested, please go check it out. I would

love to hear how that goes. Of course, I'm in Los Angeles, so not sure I'll fly out just for that. But it does sound like a wonderful evening to meet the Associate Master Blender Bruce Russell. But yeah, I'm excited to see Russell's 13 come back. It's been a while since I've reviewed it, but I remember it being just as good as everyone said it was, especially that first batch. Luckily enough, I was able to get two bottles, both of them at retail. I definitely think it was some

of the best Wild Turkey distillate I've ever had. And that's even to say compared to some Master's Keep, I think Russell's 13 exceeded the expectations. But they do say that this is their highest proof release yet, with it being 123.8 proof. It is above the Single Rickhouse B release, which was 120.2 and the Wild Turkey Generations, which was 120.8. So it's the highest ABV batch product from both the Russell's and Wild Turkey lineups. So that's pretty exciting. And just as a

reminder, the 2021 release was 114.8 proof. So we're we're jumping a good nine proof points here. But I think what's most interesting in this news release is it sounds like that all 13 year old labels moving forward will feature unique batch proofs and production seasons. And based on that, it sounds like Russell's 13 is here to stay. I would love this to be a permanent addition to their lineup. I think it is such an incredible bourbon. It's a real testament to the distillate

at Wild Turkey. I mean, I love me some Russell's Reserve. I love me some Wild Turkey 101. But getting high aged and high proof to me, I just think this is what sets them apart. And I think this release, if it is available, that's the biggest if, you know, we saw the 13 come and go, we saw it be extremely hard to find. I am seeing that the MSRP on it is $200. I think that's a fair price. It is high. I mean, you know, we used to say $10 per year is kind of what we thought

was fair for bourbon. Now that inflation and all these things have happened, I think $200 is unfortunately a fair price. If it's as good as I remember it being from the 2021 batch. This for me would probably be a try before I buy for the 2021 release. I think I only paid like $130, something like that, something relatively low for the two bottles I got at retail. So jumping up to $200, unfortunately, it makes sense. If you've had a chance to try this new

release, like the 2025 batch, let me know how it is. Feel free to come drop a comment on discord. We have a great Discord community full of all whiskey and video game lovers. Would love to hear your thoughts on it and would love to know if I should seek out a bottle or at least a pour.

So not only is Wild Turkey releasing some high proof, high age product, but Stitzel Weller is actually introducing a new product called Stitzel Reserve. Yes, you heard that right. Stitzel Weller is coming out with a new bourbon. So this one's actually going to be 24 years old. It's going to be a blend of nine different barrels from a single warehouse. It's actually the first product launch from the Stitzel Weller site in more than 30 years. And this blend was created by

Master Blender Nicole Austin and bottled at 123.4 proof. Now, here's the not so good news. They're only going to make 191 bottles of it, and it's going to be sold exclusively at the distillery for $1600 each. And I know that that is a crazy high price, but it's also a crazy aged bourbon. And those of you that know the story of Stitzel

Weller, they created the whiskey that we know as Pappy today. Now, of course, that's, you know, from several years ago, they kind of haven't been producing lately, but they've been a tourist attraction since 2014. But this is the first actual release that they are launching in 30 years. I'm hopeful that this means that maybe just maybe they're going to start releasing other releases, maybe not 24 years old. It's the first time I've ever seen a Stitzel Weller product on the market.

I came into bourbon in like 2018, so I had always heard the legend of, you know, vintage Pappy's having some Stitzel juice in it. Never had the chance to try it. I'm sure it's just as great as people say. But yeah, I probably won't be getting my hands on a bottle of this, you know, even if given the opportunity. This is one that I think is for real hardcore collectors, maybe people that are nostalgic for that Stitzel Weller taste. Now, 24 years old,

that's putting up there basically at Pappy age. It's interesting that they're using their own label behind this to put out this new product. I'm curious to see one who's going to buy it because only 191 people can get it and to what it tastes like because we're talking about barrel proof, 24 year old bourbon. It could be a hot mess or it could be a delicious mouth experience. So if you have the funds to purchase it, let me know how it is and maybe

send me a sample. Now, we also have some news from across the pond in Scotland where the new

Laphroaig Cairdeas release was just announced. If we don't know, Laphroaig is a Islay region scotch distillery. They make a lot of really delicious peated whiskey. I'm a huge fan of them and they release Laphroaig Cairdeas once a year and they're all different casks, they're different finishes. They have a really wide variety of what they do with their Cairdeas release. So I was really excited to see what this one was all about for 2025.

And this one actually caught me by surprise because it's a cask strength version of one of the products they already have in the market. So this one is called Cairdeas Lore Cask Strength. Now, I actually haven't had Laphroaig Lore before, but it's one of their higher end bottles. Usually on retail, it goes for around $120 and it blends some of their oldest

casks they have available. So I'm looking at a listing of it from back in 2017 and it says Laphroaig Lore is a blend of up to twenty one year old bourbon casks, nine year old full term quarter casks, along with a few European oak sherry casks for fun. And I really do love what Laphroaig does with their cask aging. They really highlight the cask,

especially the PX one that came out a few years back. There's also the wine and port casks. I've really enjoyed every Cairdeas release, some more than others, especially ones that are focused on wine casks. To me, those are so, so good. So this new release, they say they are marrying five of their all time favorite casks. They say that Lore is a fan favorite and one of their most complex layered flavor profiles. With this special version, we can enjoy it just like our whiskey

makers do at Cask Strength. Now, it's currently not showing up as available. Again, I just saw news of this coming out today. I will say it is 59.6% ABV. I found that it really shines at Cask Strength. It really brings out all the layers of the whiskey behind it. So you're not just overwhelmed with the peat. You're getting this really robust flavor blast. And I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for this one. I've bought every Cairdeas release for the last five years or

so. So I'm very excited to see what they've done with this Cask Strength Lore. Now, all three of these news stories feature whiskey that I'll probably not get my hands on for a while, at least. But hopefully you guys will stay tuned to the YouTube channel. I'm most likely to review them and compare them there to other releases. For those of you that listen to the podcast exclusively, I go live on Thursday evenings on YouTube around 7 p.m. Pacific, 10 p.m. Eastern.

And I'm doing things like whiskey flights and interviews and fun things like that. If you want to tune in, say hi. Let me know you're coming from the podcast. We'd love to see you there. By the way, I decided on Thursdays for the release. You guys said Thursdays and Fridays work best for you. I think Thursday makes the most sense because I'm going to be doing my live stream anyway. So what better way to kick off your day

with me and then end your night with me? The Cliffy Bus is taking you all over town morning and evening. And if you want to support filling up the Cliffy Bus, I don't know where I'm going with this analogy. You can support the channel for as little as two dollars a month. But tiers like the five dollar tier gets you access to our monthly movie night, which we are having this Friday. We are watching UHF, the Weird Al film from 1989. So, so excited for that. I've never

seen it, but I've been a Weird Al fan since I was a teenager. He was really the inspiration behind a lot of my song parodies I used to make on YouTube in another life. We're not going to we're not going to dig those up right now. I thought about maybe playing some clips here because I'm like, oh, he was really big inspiration for me. But like, no, I'll leave that for you guys to find. Just don't Google me too hard. But anyways, you get access to our movie night at the five dollar

tier. Ten dollar tier you get access to our after party hangout, which is a private hangout on discord after every Thursday night live stream. Of course, higher tiers get you things like our exclusive monthly tasting where I will send you five samples that I've been enjoying lately and we'll taste them together. Just did it this past weekend with Todd and Fred, who are currently at that tier, we tried five different whiskeys from the Game of Thrones collection that came

out from Diageo several years back. But it was really fun to visit those and see how different these whiskeys were. If you're curious about this and you want to support the channel, you can go to BourbonBytes.com and join the Byte Club there. You can also offer your support on Patreon, although BourbonBytes.com more of the funds go directly to me. There's less overhead fees. Plus you can buy some merch there and get discounts for being a member. Now, before I get into this

week's "Byte-sized Review", I did ask my discord community if they had any questions they'd like me to answer on this week's podcast. And I got a great one from our moderator, Brandon. He asked, did you get a Switch 2, and my partner and I didn't preorder it mainly because we wanted to see what the reviews were like. We did preorder the PlayStation 5 and got it at release, but there was a long period of time where there really wasn't much content that was exclusive to

PS5. The games were kind of meh at launch and none of our friends had it. So we couldn't really play with them either. And we kind of didn't want a repeat of that. I know people have been loving the new Mario Kart World game, but I think I'm OK waiting, not necessarily for a sale, but just an opportunity to get it where I'm not spending hours refreshing a web page because I've that for other things and it is extremely stressful and time consuming. I'm not in a

huge rush to get it. Honestly, I'm seeing some reviews where people are saying that like they miss their OLED screen and their Switch, the previous Switch. I have an OLED one and I agree it looks beautiful. I know they have some other technology in there, but people say when they go back to the OLED screen, it's a big, big difference. Now, of course, graphics quality is better and all that for the Switch 2. But at this point in time, I really don't see the need to rush

out and get one. Maybe at this rate, I'll wait till Black Friday. Maybe they'll have a certain bundle. Instead of doing discounts, they typically do an exclusive bundle for Black Friday or the holiday season. So I'll wait it out and see how that goes. But honestly, the most use my Switch gets is playing classic games like the ones available from Super Nintendo. That's where I typically go. That's what I pay for my Nintendo membership for mostly. So to me, having a new

processor doesn't really affect me on vintage classic games. But maybe I'm the exception because we do already have a PlayStation 5 and I typically game on my PC. So I do have other equipment to play some of the higher end AAA games. I don't necessarily need it to be on my Switch, but I do see the appeal of having one console and having all your favorite games on it. So we'll see. Maybe the Switch 2 will become the console to rule them all. But thank you,

Brandon, for your question. If you guys ever have topics or questions you want me to discuss on the podcast, please let me know. You can post them on Discord or you can drop them in my email [email protected] or slip into my DMS on Instagram. You know where to find me. If you don't just go to bourbonbytes.com, you'll find all my links there. Now, don't go anywhere yet. We are about to enter our "Byte-sized Review".

All right. So I actually had planned a different whiskey to review on this week's episode, but I walked into BevMo earlier today to pick up a mobile order just for some standard stuff for my bar cart, and I saw this bottle sitting on the back shelf. Now, if you saw the thumbnail for this podcast, you already know what it is, but this is the new Old Fitzgerald seven year old bottled in bond wheated bourbon whiskey. Now, this is a permanent addition to the

Heaven Hill lineup. This isn't the Old Fitzgerald that comes with a really fancy decanter. Although I will say this bottle is really, really nice looking. And I remember being teased about this release way back at New Orleans Bourbon Festival in 2024. Bernie Lubbers was sharing his love of the Heaven Hill bottled in bond bourbon release that's been out for a while now, and he did hint towards an Old Fitzgerald release coming soon. So we finally have it.

So as with the Heaven Hill bottled in bond, this follows all of the rules and regulations behind the bottled in bond act. But this is their wheated bourbon mash bill. So it comes in at 100 proof and seven years old. Now, this does include the distilling season on the neck tag of the bottle here. This was distilled in spring of 2018. I imagine as these continue to come out, that's going to increase with time. Now, mash bill wise, this one is 68 percent corn,

20 percent wheat and 12 percent malted barley. It looks like retail on this is actually $59.99. So great price for a seven year bottled in bond. And this bottle features their brand new logo. They're calling it your key to hospitality. And it has a really nice logo on the front. This bottle is just gorgeous. I mean, if I had to give an award for best bottle

design of the year for a new release, this would absolutely be a contender. Well, one of the first things I noticed about this whiskey as I poured into my glass is that is a very, very deep, rich color. I mean, seven years isn't crazy in the terms of aging, especially after some of the news stories we heard today. But it is respectable. I think, you know, they could have easily released like a four or five year old product. But no, they saved it for seven years

and priced it at an exceptional price. Let's go in and give it a nose. Oh, man, that's actually surprisingly easy going. And I think that happens a lot with wheated whiskeys. It's like you're used to the rye spice kind of coming out in the nose and kind of attacking your nostrils. But this one, no, it definitely doesn't knows hot. There's a good amount of sweetness there, but it's like a darker, like a brown sugar sweetness

on the nose. Now, with Heaven Hill products, I almost always compare them with bakery items. It's just an overwhelming note that I get across their entire lineup. And this fits right in there. Now, even though it does have that dark brown sugar note up front, there is a brighter, fruitier note once you kind of get in there and nose a little deeper. The first thing that comes to my mind is like a lemon tart. It's funny because last week I was comparing the whiskey

to a donut. Now I'm comparing it to a lemon tart. But if you know me, you know, that's the norm when we're talking about Heaven Hill products. I got to find a bakery item to compare it to. Well, I could nose this all day, but you guys want to know what I think of it. So let's give it a taste. Cheers. Oh my goodness. Yes. That is everything I want it to be. It is viscous. It has a great mouthfeel. You can tell that this is a very well aged and well blended product. It's sweet.

It's oaky. It's not spicy in any way, but the best part about it is it isn't grainy. I've noticed with a lot of wheated bourbons and wheat whiskeys, there's a really strong grain note where it kind of tastes like either like the raw grain, a little bit of a dusty quality, or even just like bread, which don't get me wrong. I love a bread note on a whiskey, but I don't want that to be the only note I'm getting. This goes the other direction. This one is a very rich, decadent

whiskey and being only 100 proof that kind of blows my mind how good this is. The brown sugar sweetness is the most prominent note. I got it on the nose, but I definitely get it on the palate. I'm losing a little bit of that fruitiness that I was getting on it. I feel like the finish does end a little early. It doesn't have that long of a finish, but on the tip of the tongue and like the mid palate, this whiskey just really, really impresses me. So I had to go through my collection

and see if I could find the old fits that I had in the past. I actually reviewed both the spring and fall 2023 releases, but the fall 2023 was an eight year. So I'm actually going to pour it and do a little side by side with this new bottled in bond seven year. Color wise, I'm actually surprised that the eight years a little bit lighter. Now I am reading that this new release was in level three charred barrel. So maybe a little bit extra char compared to the eight year.

I'm wondering what that did to the palate. Oh, wow, man. I forgot how good that was. That one to me. I mean, okay, here's what I think. I think that the Old Fitzgerald that I had just tried from fall 2023 hits a very specific flavor profile. It's very oaky, especially for an eight year old bourbon. To me, I am a big fan of that flavor profile. So for me, I'm drawn towards that one. I think it has a longer finish. I think it tastes a

bit more meticulously crafted. However, that bottle was also much more expensive than this one. So let me go back to the seven year and do a little comparison to the taste. Yeah, the seven year is a lot less complex, but that doesn't mean that it's not any good. It's a really rich flavor, but it doesn't necessarily take me on the same journey that the decanter release does, at least this example. And for me, I think it's quite a bit more sweet and it definitely doesn't spike

in any directions like oaky kind of like this one did. But with that being said, this is a fantastic whiskey at the price point. I could see myself buying this regularly, just like I do the Heaven Hill Blue Label Bottled in Bond. I think it would be fun to do a little comparison between those two, maybe for a live stream coming up. If you guys are interested, let me know. But I'm always excited to see a new affordable addition to a brand that I love. And this is

no exception. They really nailed it with this great price, great bottle. Yeah, that's a winner in my book. All right. Well, I think that does it for this week's episode. I know I kind of went

through those new stories a bit quick, but still trying to get my pacing down right with this being around 20 ish minutes. Thank you guys so much for listening again. If you guys want to leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast platform, please do. And if it lets you leave a comment under each episode, please feel free to leave your feedback. I'd love to hear it. I'd love to hear

your thoughts on any of the whiskeys I featured this episode. Take care. I'll see you guys on tonight's live stream those of you that are listening on release day, and otherwise, I will talk to you next week. Cheers.