What's new

Any Rye drinkers?

Rating - 100%
1   0   0
Joined
Feb 3, 2012
Messages
33
Location
Baltimore, Maryland
Van Winkle Family Reserve....when you can find it. Russell's Reserve for the everyday glass. I love Rye, there is a BBQ place in Bethany, DE that does a flight sampler of Rye. I believe that Maker's Mark has recently come out with a Rye - looking to give that a try.
 

Herfin' Harg

BoM March 2012
Rating - 100%
142   0   0
Joined
May 11, 2011
Messages
1,511
Location
Austin, TX
I drink more rye than anything else...

The bulleit and rittenhouse 100pf are about $20-24/btl here and are both excellent. The 80pf rittenhouse isn't nearly as good, so id avoid that one.

The regular sazerac rye is about $25 here. It's interesting to mix with, as it has a medicinal/herbal character that I don't get from other ryes, but I don't like it neat/rocks nearly as much as the two above.

I know a lot of folks that like the Ri 1 stuff, but I think it's shit, personally, and I wouldn't waste the money on it.

I picked up a bottle of the High West Double Rye at the Herf in June, and it's a really interesting spirit. Runs about $45/btl, where I've seen it (which is not in TX, as it's not distributed here - yet, hopefully) and is a blend of a 2yr high rye mash (95% rye, 5% barley), and a 16yr high corn mash rye (like 55% rye/35% corn or something like that). It has discernable flavors of both young and old rye, and it's one of the headiest, most interesting whiskies ive ever tried. Took my btl into my B&M Friday evening to share and one of the fellas there remarked that he thought it was the best american whisky he'd had. (For perspective, he's not at all a novice, either.) Similarly, High West makes a Bourbon/Rye blend called the "Bourye" or somesuch that is also very good. They have a number of other rye products, but given that you can't get em here, I've not had a chance to try em. Most are highly-rated and generally well-regarded, though, so I'd presume that they'd be good pick-ups, as well.

As with any Van Winkle, if you see a bottle of their 13yr rye @ or close to retail prices, buy all you can. It's great stuff (and about $60/btl here, if I could find it), but I prefer the Handy for the 50-100 range. (You may notice that my avatar is the PVW FR rye label)

The Thomas H Handy sazerac rye is excellent stuff - my favorite rye and in my top 5 favorite spirits. The downside is, it's relatively htf (though not nearly as much so as the Van Winkle 13) and it's pricey at about $80/btl.

Michter's is good stuff, just not for the money, imo. Beyond that, it's tough to come by down here.

I've not yet tried the Maker's release, but it's on my list.
 
Last edited:
Top