Cooper Spirits company sourced straight rye whiskies aged between 4 and 15 years from five different North American distilleries, located in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Alberta Canada. Then, they did what the Scots have been doing successfully for ages, and vatted them together. … The vats are maintained at the company’s Philadelphia, Pennsylvania headquarters until the components marry and then bottled at a hearty 100 proof (50% ABV) without chill-filtration.
The Northern Harvest Rye bottling itself is a blended Canadian whisky comprising a high percentage (90%) of rye. (Most Canadian whisky contains rye, to some extent.) The packaging claims the rye used is from fields that over-winter under cover of snow which, we’re expected to believe, leads to smoother whisky. The result is bottled at 45% ABV. That’s pretty much all Crown has revealed. So, am I about to taste the world’s best whiskey?
FEW’s rye is made on a copper still from a mashbill of 70% rye, 20% corn, and 10% malted barley all from mid-western US growers, and is aged around three years. Note that FEW’s gin is made on a second still, to avoid “cross-contamination” of the gin botanicals into the whiskies.
Bulleit is owned by scotch giant Diageo and distilled at the MGP of Indiana distillery, where nearly every other rye on the market today is also distilled. Bulleit uses MGP’s 95% rye (and 5% malted barley, used for its enzymes to jumpstart fermentation) recipe, and is purportedly aged between 4 and 7 years and is bottled by Diageo at 45% ABV.
Produced by Jim Beam at the Clermont distillery in Kentucky, the brand dates back to the early 1800s and was originally made in the Monongahela (Pennsylvania) style. Nowadays Old Overholt is 51% rye, just barely meeting the legal definition, with the remainder made up with corn and probably a little malted barley for enzymes. It’s aged for three years (fours years in the recent past) and bottled at 40% ABV.
till, with the word ‘rye’ on the label you’d expect a little spice or something. The sweet flavors are artificial, and the whisky flavors so light as to be ignorable. I suppose you could mix drinks with it, but unless you’re allergic to flavor, a similarly-priced bourbon is likely to give you more bang for your whiskey buck in any cocktail.
To me, this tastes like the Van Winkle bourbon, but with the heavier (and sweeter) syrupy notes replaced with orange peel, cherry bitters, and a more apparent conversation with oak. Thankfully, the thirteen years of aging stops short of being over-oaked.
Now, I have a particular fondness for young rye that actually tastes like rye. I want big eucalyptus, wintergreen, or pine, and I want spicy ‘sharp’ notes of cinnamon, cardamom, and anise. Occasionally, some caraway (think rye bread) is nice too.
While it’s an unobjectionable sip, I think the value of young LDI/MGP rye like this is to serve as the brown spirits in classic American cocktails. There are much more complex ryes for sipping.
A big bourbon with a lot to offer. High-rye mashbill, and the resulting “spice cabinet” really permeates the experience. If you like baking spices in your whisky, you will LOVE this.