Photo courtesy of my friend Steve, from whom I got a tasting set of all 12 and never looked back.

Elijah Craig Barrel Proof is, right now, one of the best values in bourbon. It’s my go-to barrel proof, even surpassing Booker’s and Rare Breed. At around $50-$60 a bottle, you’re getting a quality barrel proof bourbon that’s at least 12 years old and almost always above 125 proof (the recent Elijah Craig Barrel Proof A121, Elijah Craig Barrel Proof B521, and Elijah Craig Barrel Proof C921 nonwithstanding). Entering 2022, with the Elijah Craig Barrel Proof A122 being “low proof” as well, this might no longer be the case - but it’s worth revisiting the older, high proof batches.

Go back just a few years, though, and you enter arguably the golden age of Elijah Craig Barrel Proof - a period between its introduction in 2011/2012 and the old labels ending in 2016. In that period, there were thirteen batches produced (12 official batches and one gift-shop-only pre-batch). The timing is a bit unclear, but the first Elijah Craig Barrel Proof was released in the Heaven Hill gift shop around 2011/2012. It had the same cream-colored label as the “regular” 94 proof Elijah Craig Small Batch, but was just a little different - instead of the 94 proof, there was a handwritten %ABV and proof at the bottom. It’s so subtle that if you weren’t looking for it, you might’ve missed it.

Side note: I’ve now secured one of those pre-batch bottles, and my god is it delicious.

The Inspiration

For such an iconic brand as Elijah Craig Barrel Proof, its origin story is one of necessity. After the famous Heaven Hill fire, certain brands were supplemented by distillate from Heaven Hill’s nearby competitors and friends. Batches of Elijah Craig Small Batch (12 Year) were some of the last to be untouched - or more accurately, the barrels of bourbon destined to be Elijah Craig. As the late 2000s reached their end, then-master distiller Parker Beam saw the stocks of Elijah Craig 18 Year Old and Elijah Craig 23 Year Old dwindling, with years before the brands could recover.

So, what is a distiller to do? Barrel strength bourbons - hell, barrel strength/barrel proof/cask strength whiskies as a whole - were still uncommon. You had Booker’s Bourbon regularly in the 120-125 proof range, Wild Turkey Rare Breed in the mid-110s, Blanton’s Straight from the Barrel Bourbon, and not many others.

Parker, as master distiller, was no stranger to high proof bourbons straight from the barrel, so he took a chance. With a soft launch, he and the Heaven Hill team released the first batch - unnumbered - of Elijah Craig Barrel Proof, to bridge the gap while their 18- and 23-year-old bourbon continued to age and restock. It goes without saying that as the batch numbers began and the production grew, Elijah Craig Barrel Proof became more of a mainstay than anyone could have foreseen.

Elijah Craig Barrel Proof Pre-Batch

12 Years Old, likely as old as 15 Years
129.7 Proof (64.8% ABV)
**Eye:** Bronzed honey, a perfect bourbon color. Thin, disintegrating rims and tiny droplets hang on.
**Nose:** Lots of pure bourbon candy and some concentrated caramel/vanilla scents. So much vanilla. There’s another note I can’t quite decipher…like may a charred, sweet Manhattan. Just a touch of proof heat.
**Palate:** There’s the ECBP - powerful heat that stops just shy of burning. This is definitely a bit older. Vanilla-forward, lots of creamy oak and white pepper. Mouthfeel is full-bodied, velvety, tip-of-the-tongue heat burning brown sugar, effervescent, coating, warm.
**Finish:** Vanilla-forward, fresh scraped vanilla pods and a fantastic burn leaves soda syrup and a velvety finish on the tongue.
**Overall:** Damn…this is incredible. I’m not sure if it beats an ECBP Batch 2 for me, but if not it’s a close race. The biggest difference is the extra oak - it’s clearly a little older, but the oak isn’t woody, it’s creamy. Because of that alone, I bumped this score up. I don’t like woody bourbon, but I do like creamy oak. This is amazing.
**Rating: 9.2**

The Pirate Bottle

As you can see in the pre-batch picture above, the old label ECBPs came in a differently shaped bottle than the new universal Elijah Craig bottles. These squat, rounded bottles have become affectionately known as “pirate bottles”, and were used for all Elijah Craig bottlings including their now-defunct 12-year age-stated small batch, the in-between small batch where the age statement went to the back, and finally the non-age-stated small batch that’s still put out today. The latter three all had labels the color of the pre-batch above - cream with black and red lettering.

Anyway, back to the old labels. Sometime around 2011-2012, that pre-batch gift shop release came out. Nobody except Parker Beam himself probably knows how many (or how few) bottles were produced, but they’re pretty rare even on specialized secondary markets and auctions. Seeing the success of the first release, Heaven Hill decided to make it official, with a new saddle-leather label, red “Barrel Proof” lettering, hand-written proofs/ABVs, and a photonegative cabin behind “Elijah Craig”. Perhaps to hedge their bets, Elijah Craig Barrel Proof Batch 1 - also called Batch A313 (A= 1st for the year, 3 = March, 13 = 2013) was still a gift shop-only release. Batch 2 and forward were larger, public releases.

So, what makes these different or special relative to the “new” Elijah Craig Barrel Proofs (2017 and forward)? Besides the labeling, bottle shape, and cork (the old label corks are notoriously leaky and prone to breakage), there’s something about the old labels that is richer, a bit older, maybe some other je ne sais quoi that isn’t tangible. The closest new labels to the old ones are B518 and B520, in my opinion.

Without further ado, here they are, the twelve Elijah Craig Barrel Proof Old Labels - get ‘em while you can, folks, because they are delicious. Thanks to Steve, Chris, and Steven for helping me to taste all 12 - they’ve started a new addiction that is hard to resist!