SE02E45 — Old Fitzgerald 11-Year Walk-Up Closes Tonight and KBF Drops September Program

This is The Cut.

Rich toffee, dark fruit, a creamy finish that keeps going well past the swallow. That's what a wheated bourbon at 11 years looks like when the distillery has been making it the same way since before Pappy Van Winkle was a punchline.

I'm John from Chasing the Unicorn Podcast. Here's what we're going after today. June 13, 2026.

Here's where we want to end up. You walk out of a Louisville or Lexington retailer today with a bottle that costs $99.99 — and you don't pay $155 for it tomorrow on the secondary market because you waited.

Here's what makes it tricky. The Kentucky Bourbon Festival just dropped its full September program — four festival-only bottles at MSRP, VIP master distiller floor sessions, the centralized Release Hall. That's the headline everybody's reading this weekend. But September is three months away, and the bottle with the live close date isn't in Bardstown. It's on a Kentucky retailer shelf right now, and the walk-up window closes tonight.

Here's the move. Drive to a Heaven Hill-aligned retailer in Louisville or Lexington — Westport Whiskey & Wine and Liquor Barn are the confirmed walk-up accounts. Old Fitzgerald Bottled-in-Bond 11-Year Spring 2026 at $99.99. After tonight, secondary is running $145 to $165.

Old Fitzgerald is one of the oldest continuous wheated bourbon programs in the category. Heaven Hill has been making it on the same mash bill since the Stitzel-Weller era — that's the early postwar distillery that defined what wheated Kentucky bourbon tastes like before the allocated-bottle era turned it into a collector category. Bottled-in-Bond means federal certification: one distillery, one distilling season, minimum four years aging, 100 proof exactly. This release is 11 years. The BiB credential on a wheated mash bill at that age is uncommon — most wheated expressions are blended across seasons for consistency, not aged to a single distilling year. What you get from that single-season discipline is a finish that doesn't hedge. The wheat rounds the heat, the years build dried-fruit depth, and the 100-proof floor gives it enough structure to feel the length. Roasted almond in the middle, a finish that runs noticeably longer than the proof number suggests it should.

Old Fitzgerald BiB 11-Year Spring 2026 is the Spotlight. $99.99 today — $145 to $165 on secondary tomorrow. Westport Whiskey & Wine and Liquor Barn are the confirmed walk-up accounts in Louisville and Lexington. Rich toffee and dark fruit on the nose, creamy wheated palate, long finish with roasted almond and caramel. This is worth the chase.

Also on today's list: George Dickel Bottled-in-Bond 13-Year 2026 — TTB window cleared June 10, shelf arrival expected late June to early July. Same federal BiB credential, same 100-proof floor as the Old Fitz, seven additional years of Tennessee-climate aging for around $55. Watch for confirmation at your Tennessee-aligned retailer. And the $200-plus tier is quiet this edition — nothing new qualifies today. Full read on all three is in today's Cut Daily on our website. Free.

A word of caution on the festival calendar. The Kentucky Bourbon Festival access structure is real — four MSRP bottles in one location, master distiller floor sessions you can't get on a standard consumer tour. The O'Driscoll session at Bernheim is already below 120 tickets, and those don't come back. The rule: events with hard access floors work exactly like bottles with walk-up windows. The price of waiting isn't uncertainty — it's a number. You either pay it on the front end at MSRP, or you pay it on the back end at secondary. That math applies whether it's a bottle tonight or a September ticket next week.

Today's American Whiskey Industry Brief on Patreon opens with the Flight — New Riff Bottled-in-Bond Spring 2026 versus George Dickel BiB 13-Year nose-to-nose, with the per-year age-value math and a full side-by-side on whether seven additional years of Tennessee-climate aging changes the calculus for Father's Day gifting. And the Bar Talk covers the E.H. Taylor Old Warehouse C pre-allocation open through June 20 — whether the warehouse designation on that label is real production documentation or collector vocabulary, and what the blind tasting data actually shows.

That's The Cut. The full American Whiskey Industry Brief is at patreon.com/ChasingTheUnicornPodcast. I'm John Schuster. Thanks for joining me. Your unicorn is out there.