Henry McKenna

Henry McKenna is a Kentucky straight bourbon brand owned by Heaven Hill and distilled at Heaven Hill's Bernheim Distillery in Louisville, Kentucky. The Reserve Whiskey Library carries Henry McKenna Single Barrel 10 Year Bottled in Bond, the expression that took Best in Show Whiskey at the 2019 San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

History & Heritage

The brand carries the name of Henry McKenna, an Irish immigrant born in Draperstown, County Derry, Ireland, who emigrated to the United States and settled in Kentucky. By 1855 he was working from a flour mill in Fairfield, Kentucky, where he began turning out whiskey using a family recipe adapted to Kentucky grains, and in 1883 he built a dedicated brick distillery. The brand passed to the Seagram Company in 1941, after James McKenna died, and Seagram later sold the domestic rights to Heaven Hill in the early 1980s. Heaven Hill has produced the brand since.

The Whiskey

Henry McKenna Single Barrel 10 Year Bottled in Bond is a Kentucky straight bourbon carrying a 10-year age statement, well beyond the four-year minimum the Bottled-in-Bond Act requires. As a bottled-in-bond whiskey it is the product of one distillery and one distilling season, aged at least four years in a federally bonded warehouse, and bottled at 100 proof. Each bottle is drawn from a single barrel and labeled with its barrel number and bottling date. It is built on Heaven Hill's standard bourbon mash bill of 78 percent corn, 10 percent rye, and 12 percent malted barley.

At the 2019 San Francisco World Spirits Competition, Henry McKenna Single Barrel 10 Year Bottled in Bond was named Best in Show Whiskey, judged against whiskeys from around the world, including Scotch, in a blind tasting. It also took Best Bourbon and Best Single Barrel Bourbon. It was only the second bourbon to win the competition's top whiskey honor, and the recognition moved a modestly priced, age-stated bourbon into wide demand.

Where It Is Made

Henry McKenna is distilled by Heaven Hill at its Bernheim Distillery in Louisville, Kentucky. Heaven Hill acquired the Bernheim facility from Diageo in 1999, three years after a 1996 fire destroyed its original Bardstown production plant. As of July 2026 the brand is owned by Heaven Hill, which remains a family-owned Kentucky distiller. The bourbon is aged and bottled in Bardstown, Kentucky.