Stitzel-Weller Unveils A 34 Year Old I.W. Harper

Just one month after bringing Stitzel Reserve to shelves, Diageo-owned Stitzel-Weller Distillery is unveiling another ultra-aged bourbon, this one under the I.W. Harper label. At 34 years old, the new whiskey is billed as the rarest, oldest release in I.W. Harper’s 150-year history.

I.W. Harper dates back to the 1870s, when German-Jewish immigrant brothers Isaac Wolfe (I.W.) and Bernard Bernheim opened a trading company, Bernheim Brothers, in Paducah, Kentucky and within it, launched bourbon brand I.W. Harper (the brothers believed their last name was both too German and too Jewish for an American whiskey brand, and so used the name of a popular thoroughbred breeder and trainer, John Harper).

Within a few years of its debut, the bourbon had gained fans across the country, and by 1888, the brothers had enough capital to purchase the Pleasure Ridge Park Distillery in Louisville, which they renamed Bernheim Distillery. Production of I.W. Harper continued throughout Prohibition—Bernheim was one of a few distilleries licensed to sell “medicinal whiskey”. Just a few years after Prohibition was repealed, both Bernheims had departed the brand, and it was sold to Schenley Distillers in 1937. Schenley retained ownership of I.W. Harper until 1987, when the company was acquired by United Distillers (Guinness), which would become part of Diageo 10 years later.

Under United Distillers’ stewardship, I.W. Harper shifted out of the U.S., leaving American shelves in favor of Asian markets, where it had spectacular results, becoming the top bourbon in Japan in the late 1980s. Print advertising in Japan at the time showed a top-hatted gentleman out on the town in New York City as the brand became associated with American glamour, though in actuality it was virtually unknown in New York at the time.

After a 20-year hiatus, Diageo brought I.W. Harper stateside again in 2015 with the debut of a 15 year old. Since then, a straight bourbon and a 4 year old bourbon finished in cabernet sauvignon casks are the only other whiskeys that have joined the brand’s lineup…until now, that is.

The new I.W. Harper 34 year old bourbon is a blend of just four barrels, and it's bottled at a cask strength of 63.1% ABV. All of the barrels were aged at Stitzel-Weller for the entirety of their maturation. The story of their distillation is a little fuzzier—while Diageo knows these barrels were distilled in Kentucky in 1989, the company cannot confirm that Stitzel-Weller was the producer. That said, according to Diageo’s director of American whiskey liquid development Nicole Austin, the four barrels pulled for this release were earmarked for I.W. Harper from the jump.

Just 11 bottles of whiskey came from the four barrels, and of those, only 5 are available for sale, so don’t plan on finding one in the wild. They’re up for global auction at Sotheby’s in New York. If you’re interested in getting your hands on a bottle, you can enter a bid now through Thursday, August 7th, at sothebys.com; the auction house estimates that each of the five bottles will go for $3,000-$5,000.

All proceeds from I.W. Harper 34 year old will go to Native Son, an organization that supports Black gay and/or queer men. It was handpicked as the recipient of auction sales by the whiskey’s collaborative partner, the award-winning actor, director, and philanthropist Colman Domingo.