Most Kentucky bourbons take their second grain from rye, that peppery cereal which gives so much American whisky its sharp green spine. A smaller tradition uses wheat in its place. Wheated bourbons are softer, rounder, more concerned with sweetness than spice — and Larceny is Heaven Hill's contribution to this gentler lineage.
The name is a piece of bourbon mythology. John E. Fitzgerald was a treasury agent in nineteenth-century Kentucky who, the story goes, used his keys to enter rickhouses and pilfer from the best barrels, training his palate at the company's expense. Whether the tale is true or — more likely — a marketing flourish from a later era, the brand wears it well. Larceny is positioned as Heaven Hill's heir to the Stitzel-Weller wheated style, a softer answer to the rye-forward Kentucky norm.
The nose is a fair statement of intent. Soft caramel, honeyed wheat bread, a ripe pear quality and a dusting of powdered sugar — there is no peppery bite, no jagged edge. The palate carries through in buttercream and vanilla wafer, with a mellow cinnamon thread and a gentle stone-fruit roundness that wheat seems uniquely able to coax from grain whisky. At 92 proof it has enough warmth to hold its shape without crowding the sweetness.
The finish is medium and soft, lingering toffee giving way to a clean wheat warmth. It is, for the price, a remarkably honest bourbon — uncomplicated, well-made, and a quietly persuasive case for the wheated style. A working man's Pappy, perhaps, drunk by the man whose keys started it all.
