Which bottle did you just buy and why?

@RikS - Will do! Although I've now got three unopened ryes (JD, Woodford Reserve & Rittenhouse BiB) and the Lot 40 open so will probably only be opening one when the Lot 40 is low. That said, I'm very keen to try them all . . .

The first rye I tried was Bulleit which is a 95% rye mash - so a 'heavy' rye. I guess it's similar to trying a peated whisky and going straight for an Ardbeg or Laph, in that I felt I got a real sense of what the grain was all about. It was £20 on Amazon recently and well worth a look at that price.

I really like the complexity it offers but agree that prices here are generally prohibitive - hence snagging a couple recently in the sales. Lot 40 is also decently priced and definitely worth a look - a lot sweeter and more 'quaffable' than the Bulleit. The latter also made an amazing Old Fashioned.

@RianC Oh, then, by popular (at least me :-)) request: take mercy on your European friends and open all of them and do a comprehensive head-to-head! Now, that would be gold worth!

I did spot the very special deal on Bulleit, but the reviews turned me off a bit...

@RikS - Maybe, we'll see . . . I'm seriously tempted to do that though!

I can see why many may not like Bulleit but if you look at some of the more 'seasoned' American reviewers on You Tube etc they generally praise it for being a very decent example of rye whisky. At £20, even if it's not your bag, it will work extremely well as a mixer . . .

@RianC an added incentive to open your unopened bottles of rye whiskey is that US straight ryes generally take air very well, and often get better and better with increasing air exposure. In fact, the best advice I would give you with Bulleit Rye is to open a bottle, consume 100 ml and then leave the bottle in the back of your cabinet for at least a year. The fruitiness will grow. But it may take a year, possible even two years. I was "ho-hum...spicy but no fruit" when I first opened my first, and only bottle of Bulleit Rye. I had no enthusiasm for it and ignored it for a long time. I was flabbergasted to find this enormous and beautiful dark fruitiness which developed after about 2 years of the bottle open. Bulleit 95 Rye is produced at Midwest Grain Products Ingredients (MGPI), formerly Lawrenceburg Distillers, Indiana (LDI), and formerly to LDI, Seagram's, located in, yes, Lawrenceburg, Indiana. MGPI is primarily a (huge) bulk producer of both rye and bourbon and has only one or two very recent labels under its own name (e.g. Metze's Select Bourbon). George Dickel Rye, James E. Pepper 1776 Rye (which I recommend), Redemption Rye (up until now, anyway), a large part of the High West Rye vattings, and others are sourced MGPI Rye. MGPI makes good rye. They know what they are doing. But your Bulleit 95 Rye may still need a lot of air if you want to see the fruit from it...and believe me, you do want to see the fruit in it.

The Van Winkle 13 yo Family Reserve Rye is now a coveted and extremely expensive bottle. As you may see from my review of it I rated it at 89 points when I reviewed it not long after the bottle was open. Wait two years with the bottle open, and it is about a 95 point whiskey.

connosr.com/van-winkles-13-year-old-family…

@Victor - Thanks, informative as ever!

Funny you say that about the Bulleit and air. I had my bottle open for over a year and I'd agree that it got better over time. Very spicy to begin with but it softened and developed beautifully over that time (with no gas and a very loose fitting cork - which I changed about six months in).

I've actually been looking at the James E. Pepper 1776 Rye Cask strength lately as it is 'only' about £55 and that seems pretty good value for such a tipple. I was thinking it mustn't be up to much . . .

Absolutely no chance of getting a Pappy Rye over here though unless I sell the house and then use that money to buy some AKs and rob the Bank of England with them

@RianC, @RikS now that Diageo has its own Kentucky Bulleit distillery producing whiskey it will be very interesting to see how much the flavour profiles will change in the future. Different stills, different distillate. Different still managers, different distillate. The distillery opened in early 2017, so it should still be at least two or three more years before we see any new Bulleit Distillery distillate in the bottles.

@RianC , The second year of air time should make even more difference to your bottle of Bulleit 95 Rye than did the first year.

@Victor - Alas, it is long gone but I'd happily get another bottle of it. Perhaps best to snap up sooner rather than later though by the sounds of it? I mean, who knows, it could improve but it will certainly change the profile. I mean it has to, right?

@Victor Just curious, is Bulleit Bourbon still sourced from Four Roses under the ownership of Kirin Brewery? This was the general rumour until Deagio completed the building of their distillery. It will be interesting to see what Jim Rutledge produces in the future now that he has his own distillery.

gobourbon.com/retirement-for-jim-rutledge-m…

@Victor thanks for your contribution about Bullet Rye whiskey. I started to really enjoy this rye whiskey. I thought my imagination was running away with me. Now I know better. Thanks again, @Victor !

@RianC production on a different still must change the whiskey.

@fiddich1980 I wish I knew the answer to your question. Four Roses was well known to have been supplying the Bulleit Bourbon for a number of years, but no one seems to know for sure when that contract ended, if it has ended. So we really do not know at which distillery the Bulleit Bourbon was produced in the last several years. It could be Four Roses, or not. I know that I very much liked the Bulleit Bourbon I bought in 2010. I do not know whether what is in the stores now is from the same distillery.

@NamBeist it sounds like you have a bottle of Bulleit 95 Rye which greatly improved with air exposure. Good to hear! Before the new Bulleit Distillery Rye hits the market I will probably buy a bottle or two of Bulleit 95 Rye, decant 100 ml from each, and set them aside for a couple of years. I expect I will then later get a sensational rye for very little money,...but a lot of patience.

Looking for something new and found this nice set. Plus a grabbed a additional bottle that was recommended by a friend. The one not pictured is The Balvenie Caribbean Cask 14 YO.

@cwspangler the Caribbean cask is real good

@cwspangler Looks like you lucked in to 2 of the very last great malts of scotland...

Just picked up a Signatory Auchentoshan 25 year - Why did I get it? I had it at a tasting held by a local store and it was absolutely amazing. Easily the best Auchentoshan I've ever had. And it just went on sale!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also snagged a heavily discounted G&M Caol Ila 14 yr at the same time because the sale was just too good to pass up

@Mackstine KWM?

@BlueNote you betcha :)

@Mackstine Good one. Three of us just did a 13 bottle order. I went for the two G&M Caol Ilas that were 25% off, the OMC Mortlach 11, the Cadenhead Dailuaine 2004 and The Cooper’s Choice Skara Brae 12. All of them were heavily discounted and none of them are available in BC.

@BlueNote Good on you guys. It was a really good sale and its nice that they can accommodate you.
Love those Caol Ilas - on my 2nd bottle of the 10. Cadenheads are always fun - i highly recommend their exclusive 11yr linkwood as well. Fantastic stuff

@Mackstine Agreed. I’ve got the Linkwood from our last order and it is a beauty. I almost went for another one but decided to try the Dailuaine this time.

@Nozinan, did you have your BIL doing any shopping for you this weekend at KWM?

@BlueNote No, aside from wanting to get more Naarangi, I'm pretty much done for the year.

@Nozinan I, too am officially done for the year, or so I'm told by my extremely tolerant wife.

@BlueNote my wife has bought a lot of purse and boots in retribution for my purchases. This is worse than the nuclear arms race.

I don't even go into LCBOs anymore unless someone asks me to. Of course, there's nothing to surprise or entice me there anyway... I recently found a good deal on private preserve on Amazon... so I don't even have to go into a store for that.

@BlueNote @Nozinan Other than the Uigeadail a friendly doctor is holding for me, and a Benromach 10 100 Proof a friend ordered for me, I am also done buying for 2018.

@OdysseusUnbound, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA me too lol

@BlueNote, @Nozinan, you guys are killing me. We all know that ain't gonna happen...really!!

@paddockjudge Highly unlikely, but it could....right after I get that Springbank 12 CS.

As promised @RianC, a few initial observations on Rittenhouse. Now, from what I've understood from @Victor advice, many ryes develop and improve significantly over time. I can't wait... so this is from a new bottle, with the glass sitting for 25min before tucking in.

Colour: copper hue reminiscent of a Cognac.

Nose: some of the Bourbon type sweetness is coming through, but it is not overbearing (note, I e.g. really do not like JD and generally struggle a bit with bourbons, so ‘overbearing’ here would not have been a compliment). My understanding is that the mashbill here is a minimum 51% rye and 31% corn, so that probably explains it. There is also some ‘normal’ whisky (without “e”) notes coming through from the barley, but it’s faint and in the background. Some green banana and dark sugar. That’s about it – this is not a nose inviting for an hour’s sitting around sniffing.

Palate: It’s quite gentle on the immediate attack, but then quickly has some heat building up prickling the tongue. It’s fairly easy to pick out the different elements of it: the rye and the corn dominating. Compared to e.g. Mitcher’s, which I found to be rather spicy and peppery, this one feels a bit more subtle. I don’t get much fruitiness, I’d put this one rather on the opposite end of e.g. Amrut Fusion which presents an explosion of tropical fruit that I take to (yes, I know, maybe that’s NOT the comparison to make, but that’s what came to mind folks). There's some green banana in there carrying through, on a bed of slightly charred brown dugar. It has a few different things going on, but I think it would be a stretch to start talking about "complex", but maybe it just needs some time to settle.

Finish: short to medium, with a bit of peppery spiciness lingering on for a while having a somewhat numbing effect to the flat back of the tongue.

Conclusion: ask me in a few months, please… I’m new to the rye scene and have very limited experience of our American friends’ produce generally. I can see how there would be elements in this that I may develop a craving for, especially the spicy heat, but its too early to say whether that will actually happen. With the rye content of this one the minimum 51%, I’m curious to see what a 95-100% rye mashbill would feel like (and I don’t think I’ll miss sacrificing the corn at all) and I'm also curious how this one will develop over time as @Victor has made some important observations that I’ve listened to that some ryes want a LONG time to develop the sweet/fruity components. I like it, but I don't, but I do.

@RikS " I like it, but I don't, but I do" is an excellent description of the way I feel about just about every whisk(e)y in existence. They almost all have some qualities I like, but I will like those idiosyncratic characteristics of each whisk(e)y at different times. That is why I would not care to ever have a cabinet with fewer than 20+ whiskies from which to choose.

Expect Rittenhouse to remain spicy, and for spicy to continue to be its predominant characteristic. I don't recall ever seeing large amounts of fruit develop from it. Maybe some fruit will develop, but not a large amount, as happens with MGPI Ryes, like Bulleit. However I do think that air exposure will likely allow the whiskey to relax some, which, with Rittenhouse Rye, is a good and desirable thing. It becomes a little less strident, a little more rounded and mellow with air, I would say.

And, if you have any interest whatever in experiment with Rye Whiskey cocktails, Rittenhouse BIB is a top choice for them. Try a Rye Manhattan with Rittenhouse Rye.

@Victor That's exactly how I feel. I'm always stumped when people ask me "which is your favourite". Certainly, there are some whiskies that I would like to always have around, but I'm a very temperamentful drinker who one day may just crave a sooty Caol Ila, whereas other days the thought of it totally puts me off.

Hence, I've learned to not have too many opinions when embarking on a new journey - such as the rye one. It's just too embarrassing to express them, only to have to completely revise them 6 months later (like my promise to never ever like Lagavulin... which I now really enjoy).

And yes, I have seen frequent reference to it being a bartender favourite for cocktails. Maybe I should fashion an old fashioned!

@RikS - I think that was similar to my first dabblings with rye in that I liked it but the heavy spice was something I had to have in small, infrequent doses.