Every once in a while, a bourbon brand develops a reputation much bigger than the company behind it. Black Maple Hill is one of those brands.
Long before bourbon hunting became a competitive sport, Black Maple Hill quietly developed a following among serious whiskey drinkers. The bottles looked old, the whiskey was often very good, and nobody seemed completely certain where all of it came from.
Great whiskey, limited availability, and a little mystery proved to be a pretty good recipe for creating a bourbon legend. Then the Kentucky whiskey disappeared.
Now, more than 25 years after Black Maple Hill first appeared, Rare Character Whiskey Co. has brought the brand back to Kentucky. If you’ve been drinking bourbon for a while, that makes this much more interesting than just another new bottle on the shelf.
The Beginning of Black Maple Hill
Black Maple Hill dates to 2000, when Paul Joseph of California-based CVI Brands created the label. Despite what the name and old-fashioned artwork might suggest, Black Maple Hill was never a distillery. As far as I can determine, Black Maple Hill isn’t even a real Kentucky location.
That’s actually part of the mystery of this brand. Black Maple Hill sounds like a place you should find at the end of a winding Kentucky road, surrounded by old maple trees and a few weathered rickhouses. Instead, the place existed more vividly in the imagination of marketing people and bourbon drinkers than it ever did on a Kentucky map.
Joseph didn’t need a distillery. He needed access to good whiskey, and early in the Black Maple Hill story he found himself working with one of the most recognizable names in bourbon: Julian Van Winkle III.
The Van Winkle Connection
It’s difficult to understand this story without remembering how different bourbon looked 25 years ago.
Today, well-aged Kentucky bourbon is extremely valuable. Back then, mature barrels weren’t nearly as difficult to obtain. Bourbon hadn’t yet experienced the explosion in popularity that would eventually make every 15-year-old barrel seem like a retirement investment.
Julian Van Winkle III was sourcing, selecting, and bottling whiskey for his own brands as well as other customers. Black Maple Hill became one of them.
Some early Black Maple Hill releases have long been believed to contain whiskey from the legendary Stitzel-Weller Distillery. That certainly adds to the mystique, but I wouldn’t claim that every old bottle contained Stitzel-Weller. Complete sourcing information wasn’t always disclosed, and whiskey lore has filled in some of the blanks over the years. The source is impossible to verify.
Oddly enough, I think the mystery helped. Today we want the mash bill, distillery, warehouse, floor, and barrel number. Black Maple Hill came from a different era. Sometimes not knowing exactly what was in the bottle made people want it even more.
Black Maple Hill and Kentucky Bourbon Distillers
After the Van Winkle bottling arrangement ended, Black Maple Hill eventually became associated with Kentucky Bourbon Distillers in Bardstown. If that name doesn’t sound familiar, the family behind it probably does.
KBD was operated by the Kulsveen family and became closely associated with the revival of Willett. At the time, KBD had access to sourced Kentucky whiskey from several distilleries, including some remarkably mature barrels.
Black Maple Hill benefited from that inventory.
Numerous age-stated bourbons and ryes appeared under the Black Maple Hill label, including some very old whiskey. Those bottles helped transform the brand from an interesting independent bottler into something bourbon enthusiasts actively hunted. And we all know what happens when bourbon drinkers hear something is getting difficult to find.
A bottle that sat unnoticed on Tuesday suddenly becomes something everybody desperately needs by Friday. Black Maple Hill had everything necessary to create a cult following: good whiskey, an old-looking label, mysterious sourcing and increasing scarcity.
When the Whiskey Disappeared
There was one problem with the Black Maple Hill business model. Someone else owned the whiskey.
That’s always a danger when a brand depends on sourced barrels. As bourbon demand exploded, mature Kentucky whiskey became much harder and more expensive to obtain. Distilleries realized what they had aging in their warehouses, and suddenly everyone wanted older bourbon. Well, not everyone, but you know what I mean.
Eventually, Black Maple Hill could no longer obtain the same type of Kentucky whiskey that had built its reputation.
In 2014, the brand entered a completely different chapter when production moved to Oregon, and whiskey from Stein Distillery appeared under the Black Maple Hill name.
That doesn’t mean the Oregon whiskey was bad. It simply wasn’t the whiskey that created the Black Maple Hill legend. The old Kentucky stocks were gone. The Van Winkle connection was history. The KBD connection had ended.
For many bourbon enthusiasts, Black Maple Hill simply faded away. Please see the image below showing the new 2026 bottle as well as one produced by the Stein Distillery in Oregon.
Rare Character Brings Black Maple Hill Back
That’s where Rare Character enters the story.
Lexington-based Rare Character Whiskey Co., founded by Pablo Moix and Peter Nevenglosky, has developed a following by sourcing and selecting interesting American whiskey.
That’s also what makes Rare Character such a logical company to bring Black Maple Hill back.
The original Black Maple Hill didn’t become famous because it owned a legendary distillery. It became famous because the people behind it found interesting whiskey and put it into bottles.
Rare Character operates with much the same philosophy.
In 2026, the company returned Black Maple Hill to its Kentucky roots with a new lineup of Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. The lineup includes the new Black Maple Hill Small Batch along with limited 11-year and 16-year Kentucky Straight Bourbon releases. All three are bottled at 95 proof.
I especially like the decision to offer older age-stated versions. Black Maple Hill built much of its reputation on mature Kentucky whiskey, so offering an 11- and particularly a 16-year bourbon creates a legitimate connection between the old brand and the new one. The question for many of us is: can we afford the older age-stated bottles?
Can You Really Bring Back a Bourbon Legend?
This is where things get interesting. Rare Character can bring the name back. They can bring back the label. They can put Kentucky bourbon back inside the bottle. What they can’t bring back is the bourbon market of 2000. Those days are gone.
Trying to duplicate the original Black Maple Hill probably wouldn’t make much sense anyway. Instead, I think Rare Character has an opportunity to recreate the philosophy that made the brand successful.
Find good whiskey.
Select it carefully. Don’t pretend you distilled something you didn’t. Then let the whiskey determine whether the name deserves another chapter.
Black Maple Hill Small Batch 95 Proof
All of that history finally brings us to the bottle I had a chance to sample.
The new Black Maple Hill Small Batch is a Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey bottled at 95 proof. Unlike its 11- and 16-year-old siblings, the Small Batch carries no age statement. Normally, I wouldn’t give that much thought. But when you put the name Black Maple Hill on the bottle, expectations change.
A famous name doesn’t guarantee good bourbon, and an old-looking label certainly doesn’t make whiskey taste better. Eventually, the whiskey inside will tell the story.
Bourbonfool Verdict
I enjoyed the sample of the small batch. It has a unique flavor profile that I enjoyed. However, I would not pay more than suggested retail for the bottle. This is not a negative, just my personal philosophy. One question I think is especially important when tasting this bourbon:
If this exact whiskey came in a bottle with a name I’d never heard of, would I still want to buy it?
That’s a pretty good test for any resurrected whiskey brand.
Watch for my upcoming review of this bottle on the Bourbonfool YouTube Channel.
The Return of Black Maple Hill
I love bourbon history. It’s one of the reasons I started Bourbonfool. But history alone won’t convince me to buy a bottle.
We’ve seen plenty of forgotten whiskey names resurrected because somebody realized an 1800s date looks good on a label. Black Maple Hill feels a little different. The original brand wasn’t built around a famous distillery or some secret family recipe passed down for generations. Its reputation came from finding interesting Kentucky whiskey and bottling it.
That’s why Rare Character may be a particularly good fit for the next chapter.
More than 25 years after Black Maple Hill first appeared, the name is back, and Kentucky bourbon is once again inside the bottle.
Rare Character doesn’t need to recreate the Black Maple Hill of 2000. They just need to follow the formula that made people care about it in the first place.
Find great whiskey and let the whiskey build the legend.
Please let me know your thoughts about Black Maple Hill or any bourbon sourced by a NDP. Your comments are always welcome.
Cheers Don Williams