Redemption Rye

This bottle was provided by the producer for review purposes with no strings attached.

If you ever wonder whether or not you are good at your job, just think about the poor Minnesota Legislature and the fact that they accidentally legalized THC edibles this summer because one party forgot to actually read the bill that they were voting on. But since a majority of citizens in my adopted home state wish they had gone further and just legalized marijuana, they can’t even take credit for doing what they accidentally did. If you can say that you are better at your job than that, I say that you’ve got it made.

I was thinking about that tonight as I was playing a little Pink Floyd on my new turntable. For…no reason.

I kid, obviously. I was actually thinking about it because I was working on some banner ads. I hate making banner ads because I hate seeing them. (There is a reason I don’t put ads on this site.) Not only that, but I’m not terribly good at them. But people keep hiring me to do it, so…at least I’m better at the job than the Minnesota Legislature?

Oh, speaking of…vote for people next Tuesday that will actually do their job and read the damn bills that they are voting on, ok? I won’t tell you which party to vote for (you probably already know my leanings), but regardless, we should be hiring people who, at the bare minimum, can do the reading part of their job.

Anyway, now that I’m all worked up. Who wants a drink?

Tonight, I’m looking at a whiskey that I have walked past for years. Literally years. I saw that it was listed as two years old on the back and just didn’t feel like giving it a chance. Even if it does look to be sourced from MGP, my favorite distillery for rye. They sent it along with a more expensive new release so that I would have a baseline to compare with the new one. As I hadn’t had either before, I thought that was pretty smart. So let’s dig in.

Redemption Rye

Purchase Info: This bottle was provided for review purposes at no cost. It goes for $27.99 at my nearest Total Wine.

Price per Drink (50 mL): $1.87

Details: 2 years old. 46% ABV. Mash bill: 95% Rye and 5% Malted Barley.

Nose: Spearmint, herbal dill, and bubblegum.

Mouth: Gum from a pack of 1980's baseball cards (yes, I'm old. If you aren't, think bubblegum with hints of cardboard, but in a good way), spearmint, nutmeg, and almond.

Finish: On the shorter side of medium. Notes of mint, cinnamon, and caramel.

Thoughts: This is an ok Rye whiskey that I will happily finish but probably wouldn't buy again unless it is on sale. It's a pretty sweet and gentle rye. Which isn't typically what I look for in rye whiskey. However, it does work ok in rye cocktails. I tested it in a Sazerac and an Old Fashioned, and it worked fine in both as long as you adjusted the other ingredients to account for the fact that this is a little gentler than other ryes I’d usually use. Overall, not bad, just kinda meh. I’m excited to try the other bottle they sent now that I have this as a baseline. Check back next week to see how the more expensive version fairs. (How’s that for a tease?)

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Uncle Nearest Uncut/Unfiltered Straight Rye Whiskey

This review sample was kindly provided by the PR team for Uncle Nearest Whiskey with no strings attached.

Holy shit, y’all! I’m back! Did you miss me? I missed you. Not quite as much as I missed my taste buds and breathing normally, but you were at least top three…five. Top five, for sure.

You have no idea how happy I am right now. And not just because I can actually taste and smell the whiskey I’m writing about tonight. No, last night I had just about the best date night I can possibly imagine. My absolute favorite musical artist, Butch Walker, was kicking off his tour last night up in Dinkytown (the area around the northern edge of the University of Minnesota campus), and my wife got us tickets. I’ve been beaming since the show ended. I can’t hear anything because my old deaf ears take longer to recover from the noise of a loud and raucous rock show than they did when I was younger. But I don’t even care. It was worth it.

Add to that fact the opportunity to talk about whiskey, and I’m just in heaven right now. Though I’m going to warn you right now, the flow of this post may suffer tonight. I’m taking frequent breaks to sing along with the Spotify playlist I made that has the songs that were played at the concert. I’ve been doing it all day. Needless to say, it’s been quite the bouncy day for me.

Anyway, we are talking about whiskey, not music. Though if you give me even a sliver of opportunity, I’ll talk music all night. So I’m really trying hard to reign myself in tonight…

Right, yes. Back to whiskey. Tonight we are taking a look at the latest offering from Uncle Nearest. It is a distillery exclusive that holds promise for more widely available releases in the future. Uncle Nearest Uncut/Unfiltered is a rye whiskey sourced from Canada and then aged in New York and then Tennessee. It is bottled at whatever strength that the batch was when the barrels were all dumped. It says “Uncut” right in the name. This batch ended up at 119.7° proof, but I’m going to guess if they have future batches that, they will be at least a little different. If you are curious about what the PR Firm has to say about it, here is the summary I got from them:

To create its uncut/unfiltered rye whiskey, Uncle Nearest sourced its rye from Canada and raised it in New York for four years. Once it was ready, the Uncle Nearest team brought it back to Tennessee to rest and finish in its barrels before being bottled. The new expression reinforces Master Blender, Victoria Eady Butler’s ability to create the highest quality whiskeys possible even when moving away from the filtration process that was created by her great-great-grandfather. Uncle Nearest’s inaugural rye whiskey is available as a distillery exclusive offering available for purchase ($149) at the Nearest Green Distillery in Shelbyville, TN.

As I mentioned, this seems to be just the beginning for Uncle Nearest and their experiments in the world of Rye whiskey. According to the details I got from the producer: “For those unable to make it to Shelbyville, there will be more Rye to come from Uncle Nearest in the coming months, including Straight Rye and Single Barrel Rye.” As a lover of both Rye and Canadian whiskey, this is good news for me.

But most importantly, how does it taste?

Uncle Nearest Uncut/Unfiltered Straight Rye Whiskey

Purchase Info: This sample bottle was kindly provided to me for review purposes. The suggested retail price is $149.

Price per Drink (50 ml): $10.00

Details: Distilled in Canada, Aged in Canada, New York, and Tennessee. 59.8% ABV. Batch 001.

Nose: Caramel, black tea, mint, chocolate, and a hint of bubble gum.

Mouth: Very hot. Caramel, chocolate, and black tea.

Finish: Long and very warm. Notes of toffee, chocolate, cinnamon, and mint.

Thoughts: This is a pretty good rye whiskey. You can taste the Canadian origin. Lots of caramel/toffee and black tea notes. It's very sweet but as hot as one would expect something that's almost 120° proof to be. Just a tiny splash of water does wonders to tame the heat and bring out even more sweetness. This is a "dessert rye" if I've ever tasted one. I think I like the standard Tennessee Whiskey Uncle Nearest releases better, but this is a very interesting change of pace when it comes to rye whiskey. If it were in a store, I doubt I’d want to pay $150 for a bottle. But if I was at the distillery and it was going to be a souvenir, well, then all bets are off. I’ve paid much more for worse whisky as a distillery exclusive in the past. It has made me decide to keep my eyes open for the other Ryes that will be coming along in the fairly near future, though.

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The Whiskey-A-Go-Go Cocktail via The Modern Rogue

Well, hi there.

Early last week, I was in bed watching some YouTube as I waited to fall asleep when I saw a video about a cocktail that sounded very interesting to me. Mostly it was interesting because I had every ingredient but one. Now normally, my bedtime video habits wouldn’t be brought up here. Even when they are relevant. I mean, it’s a little weird right?

But here’s the thing. I watched that video and decided I was going to make that cocktail. So I looked up how I could get the one ingredient I was missing. It turns out Total Wine carries it, just not in the stores that are nearest to me. I needed to make an hour trip to go get it. Which isn’t a huge deal, except that was a particularly unlucky night. For some reason, I couldn’t get on the road until almost eight o’clock in the evening.

Now if you know me, you know that I am no longer a night owl. I’m usually in bed between 9:00 and 9:30pm. At eight, I’m starting to wind down. Have a drink. Get myself ready for sleepy time. So for me to leave the house at eight on a Tuesday night? You know I wanted this cocktail. Long story short, I drove, got the ingredient, got home and got ready for bed. It was too late to actually make the cocktail, but hey, I knew what I was going to have the next day.

Except for one small thing. I had a very timid, very large lab staying with me at that moment and he really wanted the comfort of sleeping on top of me. After a while, I tried to get him off of me so I could sleep. I was gently pushing him off my legs, he was stubbornly pushing back, my hands slipped, and his head hit my temple at a very high rate of speed.

Doctor confirmed it was a concussion. Which meant, no alcohol. Which meant no tastings. Not only couldn’t I write Thursday’s post as I wasn't supposed to think, but damn it, I couldn’t even have my cocktail that I went out of the way to try. So tonight, I’m giving you the cocktail recipe and sharing the video that sparked this entire misadventure. I was able to have the cocktail tonight, and it is quite tasty, if you like spirit-forward cocktails that are on the slightly bitter side. It’s called the Whiskey-A-Go-Go and I got it from an episode of The Modern Rogue, one of my favorite YouTube channels.

The Whiskey-A-Go-Go Cocktail as seen on The Modern Rogue

1.5-ounces Rittenhouse Rye
0.75-ounce Amaro Montenegro
0.75-ounce Bonal Gentiane-Quina
One dash Scrappy’s Cardamom Bitters

Build this in the glass, use big ice, stir a bit to dilute, and serve with the ice and a zested lemon peel

And now to the video, think of this like I’m a substitute teacher who doesn’t really care. Instead of math today, we’re watching a video instead.

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Old Pepper Single Barrel Rye

James E. Pepper was a pre-Prohibition whiskey man with quite the whiskey pedigree, at least if you define pedigree as the people he was associated with. His father, Oscar Pepper started a distillery near Versailles, Kentucky that is today’s Woodford Reserve Distillery, hired James Crow as his distiller and by all accounts made some pretty good whiskey. Very probably because James Crow (of Old Crow Bourbon fame) was the developer, or at least the popularizer, of the sour mash fermentation method that is used in making most American Whiskey to this day. After Oscar died, James inherited his distillery but was deemed too young to run it so it was managed by his court-appointed guardian Col. E.H. Taylor (of Old Taylor fame). Taylor did the young Pepper the favor securing money to expand the distillery, but then also ended up losing it in bankruptcy proceedings. The distillery was then sold to Misters Labrot and Graham, whose name still graced bottles of Woodford Reserve up until pretty recently.

Now this is speculation on my part based solely on hindsight of the eventual outcome, but I’d say that the court may have misjudged who should be running the distillery as going bankrupt and losing the business might just be the worst outcome that could have happened to a business. Of course those were turbulent financial times in the US so James Pepper might have faired even worse. Hard to tell from almost 150 years away.

But, regardless, it seems that James may have learned a thing or two about making whiskey through all of this as he, along with a business partner, decided to try again. This time in nearby Lexington, Kentucky. That distillery lasted beyond James’ death in 1906 until Prohibition shut it down. The James E. Pepper brand and distillery passed to Schenley and then to United Distillers during various mergers and acquisitions. According to bourbon historian Michael Veach, the James E. Pepper distillery was shut down in the late 1960s and the brand “disappeared from the market by the end of the 1970s” only to briefly reemerge in the early 1990s as an export-only brand before being abandoned for good.

Which takes us out of the past and brings us to tonight’s whiskey. In 2008, the abandoned trademark for the James E. Pepper brand was acquired by Amir Peay. He and his team started by bottling MGP juice under the 1776 brand name while they got a new James E. Pepper distillery going on the site of the historical James E. Pepper distillery. Here is what the company has to say:

The Story

In 2017 we completed the multi-year project to rebuild the historic Pepper Distillery, which had been abandoned in 1967 for over 50 years. This label is a celebration of that project and where we showcase our single barrel picks, small-batch bottlings, or limited specialty finishes.

Technical

Age statements and bottling proofs are on the labels. Bottled by hand at the Historic James E. Pepper Distillery, using water from the historic limestone well to cut whiskeys to proof. Distilled at various distilleries, including ours (DSP-KY-5), the Lawrenceburg Distillery in Indiana (DSP-IN-15023), and the Bardstown Bourbon Co. in Kentucky (DSP-KY-20037); relevant details can be found on the labels.

My bottle was distilled in Indiana and is 4 years old. Let’s see how it tastes.

Old Pepper Single Barrel Rye

Purchase Info: So, I lost the receipt for this. No idea what I spent on it. But Total Wine sells it for about $40 in Michigan and $53 in Kentucky. So it was probably in that range somewhere.

Price per Drink (50 mL): (based on the figures above) $2.67 - $3.53

Details: 4 years old. Cask 1126. 55% ABV. Distilled at DSP IN - 15023. Bottled at DSP KY-5.

Nose: Cinnamon candies, spearmint, and brown sugar.

Mouth: Very hot. Lots of cinnamon candy right off the bat. following that are notes of cedar, mint, and nutmeg.

Finish: Warm and of medium length. Lingering notes of spearmint, cedar, and cinnamon.

Thoughts: This is a very tasty rye. Very cinnamon forward until it gets to the finish when the mint takes over. It is very hot, but takes water well. A little water brings out a sweet malt note. All in all, I like this one. Tastes good neat and works really nicely in a Sazerac cocktail as well.

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Sources:
bourbonveach.com: Brand History – James E. Pepper
bourbonveach.com: Lexington Kentucky Distilleries – James E. Pepper
Those Pre-Pro Whiskey Men: James E. Pepper: Was His Whiskey Revolutionary?
JamesEPepper.com: Old Pepper - Single Barrel & Small Batch

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WhistlePig Old World Rye, Aged 12 Years

Tonight we look at the final bottle out of the “Piglets” 3-pack of WhistlePig Canadian Ryes. This one is the oldest of the bunch and the most expensive if you were to buy a full bottle. It is also the lowest proof of the bunch at 86° proof. But even though it is the lowest proof, it is certainly the one that I was most excited to try. I mean, this is a sourced Candian whisky. I love me some Canadian whisky, but I don’t usually like to pay too much of a premium for it. Delicious, 18-year-old whisky from Wiser’s can be had for around $70 and you can get a cask strength version of Alberta Premium at my local corner liquor store for even less.

Coincidentally, way back when WhistlePig first debuted on the scene it was an open secret that the source of their whisky was Alberta Distillers, the same folks that make Alberta Premium (and sell that same juice to a lot of Non-Canadian brands here in the States). No idea if they are still sourcing from Alberta these days, but the point still stands that I can get really good Canadian whisky for a lot less than what WhistlePig is asking.

But getting back to why I found this one more interesting than the others. This one is barrel-finished so it isn’t “just” Canadian whisky. In this case, they used three different types of finishing barrels. Here is what the producer has to say about it:

This whiskey is the marriage of three finishes, each with their own distinctive flavor profiles. After maturing for 12 years in New American Oak, the spirit is divvied into one of three barrels –Madeira (63%), Sauternes (30%) and Port (7%).

Let’s see how it tastes and if my interest was well-placed.

Whistle Pig Old World Rye

Purchase Info: $26.99 for the WhistlePig Rye Whisky Piglets multipack of three 50mL bottles at Total Wine, Burnsville, MN. Retail for a full bottle locally is between $130 and $165.

Price per Drink (50ml): $9.00

Details: Aged 12 years. 43% ABV. Wine Cask finished (63% in Madeira Casks, 30% in Sauternes Casks, and 7% in Port Casks).

Nose: Oak, vanilla, red fruits, and a hint of nutmeg.

Mouth: Soft in the mouth. Notes of red fruit, vanilla, oak, and cedar.

Finish: Warm and on the shorter side of medium length. Fruity with notes of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cedar.

Thoughts: This is pretty tasty. I like it. It's the best one out of the multi-pack. Though, it's not something I'd personally buy. It’s good, it just isn't $130-$165 good. However, it is good enough that I'd have been on board if it were priced at about half that so that it was more in line with the price of Alberta Cask Strength or Wiser’s 18-Year-Old. Of course, if any of you want to buy this for me, I'd happily accept. As it is, I'm happy to have tried it and now I know that not everything WhistlePig releases is subpar, even if everything I’ve tried to this point is way overpriced for sourced Canadian Whisky.

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WhistlePig PiggyBack Rye

Folks, there are no dogs in my home tonight that do ordinarily not live here. That means it is a rare date night with my wife tonight so I am going to jump right into this without much back story. Tonight’s whiskey is another one out of the WhistlePig Rye Whiskey Piglets 3-pack. This time is the WhistlePig PiggyBack 100% Rye. Let’s see how it tastes.

WhistlePig Piggyback

Purchase Info: $26.99 for the WhistlePig Rye Whiskey Piglets multipack of three 50mL bottles at Total Wine, Burnsville, MN. Retail for a full bottle locally is around $50.

Price per Drink (50ml): $9.00

Details: 6 years old. 100% Rye. 48.28% ABV.

Nose: Oh. That's spicy. Loads of cinnamon red hot candies. Underneath that are notes of Cedar and butterscotch.

Mouth: Cinnamon, oak, cedar

Finish: Medium length and quite warm. Lingering notes of cinnamon and a sharp cedar note.

Thoughts: I'm a little disappointed by this one. When I first nosed it, I was really excited to see where the strong cinnamon candy note would lead us. The flavors in the mouth were good. But the finish really knocks this one down for me. There is a sharp grain alcohol note along with the cedar that reminds me of the finish you'd find in a handle of bottom-shelf Canadian Whisky (think Windsor Canadian circa 2000, which was the last time I've had it…and at the time at least, it was very bad). Not to say this tastes like a bottom-shelf Canadian Whisky. But, the finish isn’t doing it for me. Might be for you if you don’t have that bad association, but it isn't for me. I'm rating this just meh.

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WhistlePig 10-Year-Old Small Batch Rye Whiskey

So. Depression. It’s something I’ve been struggling with lately. I’ve been on depression and anxiety meds for close to a decade now. And most days are great. I’m generally a happy person. But every so often something happens and the familiar spiral of nothingness threatens to rise up and overwhelm me. Thankfully I am medicated, and my dosages are pretty well dialed in at this point, so my bouts don’t last too long. Usually, it’s just an afternoon of listlessness and a lack of motivation to do even the littlest thing. Which, if ignored can go further. Because the worst part of these bouts is that I know that I should be doing the things that need to get done, but I can’t quite bring myself to do it. And then I get upset with myself for not doing what needs to be done. I question my self-worth. It’s like “if you can’t even vacuum the giant ball of hair on the floor when you see it there, why are you even here?” It’s…not fun. And it takes time to get through.

Luckily for me, I have a job that allows for self-care. Sometimes my job even forces it upon me whether I want it or not. As was the case on Tuesday of this week. There is a German Shepard that I watch named Doug. I’ve watched him since he was three months old. Usually, he is overwhelmingly excited. As he was on Tuesday. But as I was feeling that spiral of depression and nothingness start to overwhelm me, he intervened. I was laying on the sofa, trying hard to figure out why I couldn’t just vacuum and do the dishes—spoiler alert: it was a depressive episode, I’m a little slow on the uptake when they start—when he just crawled up and laid on top of me. And he didn't take no for an answer. He noticed that his Uncle Eric wasn’t right even before I did. And that kind of love tripped something that allowed me to start to climb out. I still wasn’t motivated to do anything, but I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. The emotions were on their way back. I’m grateful for Doug.

I’m not sharing this for sympathy. But I do think we need to start normalizing mental illness. So I’m letting you know what happened to me this week. Why I didn’t write anything on my regular day. And who knows, maybe it’ll help someone else if they are in a similar spiral.

But you aren’t here for that, you are here because you saw a photo of a tiny bottle of WhistlePig Rye. so let’s get into it. I’ve never purchased anything from WhistlePig before. And to be honest, I probably won’t again as most of their stuff costs more than I want to pay for sourced Canadian Whisky. But as I was wandering through Total Wine last weekend looking for something that I could write about, I saw this little three-pack of miniature bottles for $27. So while $27 for 150 mL of whiskey is very expensive, it was a lot less expensive than the $85 that a 750 of just one of the bottles would have cost. Plus, I like to reward producers for making these sampler packs. I think they are a great way to experience various whiskeys when you are on a budget.

And I’m always on a budget. I mean, I’m frugal. Just look at the tagline at the top of the page. And in my mind being frugal is different than being cheap because it isn’t that I won’t spend money. I just like to make sure that I’m spending it smartly on things that will be good, interesting, or both. And in this case, I get content for three posts for $27 which is probably less than I’d have spent for content for a single post usually.

So, is WhistlePig Rye good? Or interesting? Is it by chance both? Or neither? Let’s find out.

WhistlePig 10-Year Small Batch Rye Whiskey

Purchase Info: $26.99 for the WhistlePig Rye Whiskey Piglets multipack of three 50mL bottles at Total Wine, Burnsville, MN. Retail price locally for a full bottle is $84.99.

Price per Drink (50ml): $9.00

Details: 50% ABV. 10-years-old. Canadian Whiskey, blended and bottled in Vermont.

Nose: Cedar, mint, cherry, and a touch of barbecue smoke.

Mouth: Cedar, mint, cherry, cinnamon, and a hint of dill.

Finish: On the shorter side of medium length and of medium warmth. Spicy with notes of cedar, dill, cherry, and cinnamon.

Thoughts: This is pretty tasty, but I'd never pay the $85 that Total Wine is asking for a bottle. To me, it just isn't $85 good. It was more of a $30 good. It's a fairly unassuming rye whiskey. I'm glad I got to try this in a small bottle. It's not bad, just way too expensive. So final verdict: good, but not interesting.

(and now cue the people who love and covet WhistlePig to leave comments about how I'm just an idiot, and an admittedly crazy one at that, in 3... 2... 1.)

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Rittenhouse Rye Bottled-in-Bond: Revisited

It has been two thousand, nine hundred and forty-one days since I last reviewed Rittenhouse Rye. Just over eight years. At the time, it was being contract-distilled by Brown-Forman as Heaven Hill waited for their distillate to come of age after the distillery fire in the late 1990’s. About 9 months later, I reviewed the Brown-Forman and the Heaven Hill versions side-by-side.

Here are my thoughts from that head-to-head 2015 review:

Thoughts: Meh. This is hot, as is to be expected from a 100 proof whiskey, but the flavor and nose seem sort of muted.

And that’s pretty much my relationship with Rittenhouse. I pick it up occasionally but never seek it out. If I want a rye, I’m looking for one that has more rye in the mash bill. I don’t pick up many of the Kentucky-Style 51% “Barely Legal” ryes these days. If I see a Sazerac Rye, I might just pick it up because it has a pretty bottle but otherwise I have my rye go-tos. Old Forester Rye at about 70% rye is one I really enjoy. New Riff Rye at 95% rye grain in the mash bill is delicious. And heck, an MGP rye always hits the spot.

So let’s take a look at this forgotten rye and see if I’ve been missing anything over the last 7+ years.

Rittenhouse Rye Bottled-in-Bond: Revisited

Purchase Info: $23.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Viking Liquor Barrel, Prior Lake, MN.

Price per Drink (50 mL): $1.60

Details: 50% ABV. Distilled at D. S.P. KY-1. Bottled at D. S. P. KY-31.

Nose: Mint, caramel, cedar, and a hint of dill.

Mouth: Has a nice zip to it. Notes of mint, cedar, ginger, and caramel.

Finish: Medium length and warmth. Notes of cedar, cinnamon, and mint.

Thoughts: Big fan. This has a reputation as a cocktail rye (partially perpetuated by yours truly). But honestly, I like it neat as well. Being a Kentucky-style "Barely Legal" rye, this does taste more like a bourbon than a rye with a higher percentage of rye grain in the mash bill would. But for some people—my wife included—that is a benefit. It's quite tasty.

Well, I know that in the intervening 7 years, my palate has changed drastically. I’ve become a much bigger fan of high-proof/high-burn whiskeys. So this doesn’t feel nearly as warm as it did to me in 2015. But even back then I said I liked it in cocktails. And I still do. But I’ve had a couple pours of this neat since I cracked it open and I like it that way as well. Plus to top it off, it is still under $25.

Good enough to enjoy neat, but inexpensive enough to use in a cocktail. I’ve upgraded this one to a like.

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