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.
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.
This is a damn tasty whiskey. What I’ve always liked about Angel’s Envy is its ability to transcend the bourbon clichés and deliver both subtlety and complexity in a way that other, heavier bourbons just can’t. At cask strength, you have an iron fist in a velvet glove – those same subtle, complex elements are thrust in your face and burned onto your tongue, for better or for worse.
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.
Every year around mid-September, Four Roses releases the coveted Limited Editions. 2015 also marks another transition at Four Roses: Legendary Master Distiller and American whiskey celebrity Jim Rutledge will be retiring this Fall. That makes the 2015 Limited Edition Small Batch the last limited release made under Jim’s direction. If you do secure a bottle, you’re in for a treat. A mixture of 4 different bourbons, using 3 recipes (out of the 10 Four Roses recipes) at unusually high ages: 16 year-old OBSK, 11 year-old OBSV, 15 year-old OESK, and 14 year-old OESK.
Way back in 2011 … I was called out in the comments by Woodford adherents that I was doing the whiskey a disservice by reviewing it based on the sample bottle. I had an opportunity to revisit Woodford Reserve recently – this time from a full 750ml bottle – and thought it would be appropriate to review it again for National Bourbon Heritage Month. Does my review from 4 years ago hold up?
Sons of Liberty set out to create a whiskey that evoked refreshing summertime IPA beer by actually distilling an IPA beer wash, suspending hops in a gin basket during pot-still distillation, and then dry-hopping the finished (aged) whiskey! No sugar syrup, no weird chemicals, just artisanal ingredients treated with respect and using traditional brewing and distilling methods creatively to craft something innovative.
Uprising is an American single malt whiskey distilled from a stout beer using classic American ale yeast and the traditional stout malts: Pale Malt, Dehusked Chocolate Malt, Crystal 45, Biscuit malts, and plain roasted barley. The beer is then double-distilled in Sons of Liberty’s 250 gallon pot still and aged for under two years in new charred American oak barrels.
Battle Cry is an American single malt whiskey distilled from a Belgian Trappist-style beer made with 20% rye malt and the rest Pale and Honey malts. The beer is then double-distilled in Sons of Liberty’s 250 gallon pot still and aged for under two years in new charred American oak barrels that are “enhanced” with lightly toasted staves of French Oak.
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.