A. H. Hirsch Reserve, 16 year Question

[tda003]

I was going through my bourbons last night and discovered a bottle of Hirsh 16 year old bourbon. My recollection is that I purchased it about 20 years ago. If memory serves (and often now it does not), this was distilled in Pennsylvania, but the distillery closed (or was closed legally) and the whiskey continued to age until the facilities were acquired by another entity (Michter?) which then started bottling it. I have been unable to find more on this. The new stuff is referred to by gold foil, etc. and has a different label design than my bottle, which has cursive lettering and a blue wax seal. The wording on the label states:
"A.W. Hirsch
Reserve
Pot Stilled Sour Mash
Straight Bourbon Whiskey
16 Years Old
Distilled in the Spring of 1974
Bottled by Hirsh Distillers
Laurencegurg, Kentucky
45.8% Alc/Vol 91.6 Proof 750ml"

Anyone have any information on this bottling? Thanks.

 

[oldbonz]

The A.H. Hirsch 16yo has been bottled three times -- the three different seals indicate which bottling it is. The so-called '16yo' whiskey was placed into stainless steel tanks in 1990, ending its aging, but was not bottled immediately. The original, early-'90s 16yo bottling has the script label and blue wax that you found. A later bottling in the Nineties was topped with the gold wax, and a third and final bottling (topped with gold foil) was completed in September 2003. All, by the way, were under the auspices of Julian Van Winkle -- the first two at his Old Commonwealth bottling line, and the last one at Buffalo Trace.
Originally, it was all the same whiskey, and all of it was unbarreled at 16 years old. But, as it was bottled at different times, it spent varying degrees of time in the stainless steel. Most in the distilling business state that such storage is inert and imparts or allows no change in the whiskey.