Thanks for listening to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I am Greg, I do communications at Binny's. Hey, I'm Pat, I do spirits at Binny's. I'm also the founder and president of the Roger Adamson Thick King Fan Society. Well, Roger's here. Hey, folks. I'm the one who seconds all the motions in that society. I'm Chris, I do wine. Okay. Jim's over off mic, he's going to pour stuff because we're tasting blind today. Thanks, Jim. Thanks, Jim. Roger's intro was just a drawn out sigh. It's pretty accurate. Yeah. I thought he said hi, but he was cracking wise at the same time. Is there a favorite rye whiskey that you will misidentify in this episode? Oh, yeah. Not potentially. He's going to trash his all-time favorite rye. Next episode, Pat's going to do a Boilermaker with Paps Blue Ribbon and whatever rye he likes better than his favorite one. That's funny. I don't know if I have a favorite rye, honestly. I guess I always default to Sazerac just because I like fatter, sweeter things, which we'll get to the different styles of rye as we go. You go to Rittenhouse? I do like Rittenhouse. I do like Rittenhouse because it's higher proof, actually. I guess I tend... I don't know. Once Rittenhouse went up to the same price as Sazerac, I switched to Sazerac. I agree. Rittenhouse was great when it was 22 bucks, but now they're both like $27. I think you can tell that Sazerac has a couple more years of age on it. It's just a more balanced drinking experience. Sazerac being available seems like more of a new thing too. There was a drought for a while. There was a drought for years, and then they ramped up rye production years back, so we're finally seeing the benefits of it, like we will see with Weed & Bourbon at some point. We're swimming in Saz rye. We have Saz rye in 750s and these big, cool 175s at our store and little pints and stuff. You can get Sazerac rye pretty much any time at any Binny's. Since we're talking about the long anticipated return of some ryes. Yeah, and we are indeed talking about a six-year-old versus a four-year-old bottle and bond. So, there is an age difference there for sure. Oh yeah. We should also point out Roger's favorite, the Wild Turkey 101 rye is back around and affordable again. Yep. 750ml bottles. Now slipping into the written house spot with that price too. That's true. That was kind of just out of sight, out of mind for so many years. Now I think about it, because we had the one liters that were like 40 bucks or something. So in that low 20s, high proof rye space, Wild Turkey 101. Well guys, we didn't even have to taste them. That was another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Our thoughts on all of the ryes. So there's six, right? We have six? Yeah. I brought six ryes today. Chris has samples just labeled in little generic bottles, and I have our bottles labeled so Jim can pour them. Man, the first rye of the afternoon always smells great, doesn't it? I mean, it certainly, this is unmistakably rye, you know? Herbal, spicy, a little bit of that kind of dill character. It's not overblown, though. It still has a fruit cocktail and banana estuary component. For sure. Rye tends to go either way spicy, or it can also be really, really fruity. You know, I've heard some talk that that involves cook temperature with the grain itself, but, you know, I don't have a firm answer from a distiller on that. I think this is hitting both of those notes square on. It's quite fruity, but very, very spicy in the nose and on the palate. I think Dill was a great descriptor for this. This is, I'm getting a lot of that. It's a classic rye character. You know, Dill, caraway, mint, those are all total key giveaways for rye. And like a bright, sweet, butterscotch note on the tip of your tongue. It almost cotton candy sweet, along with all the fruit and spice. And they can be real citrusy too. Wow, what can't they do? What can't rye do? Okay. Okay. So what's the technique here? We're going to take shots at it, say how much we like it? Are we going to try to figure out what it is? I don't know. I mean, I don't know. Do you guys like this one? I think this is good. I think this is probably a kind of middle of the road proof. It seems pretty high in rye content, considering the spice. It wouldn't surprise me if this was one of those MGP ones or something. It does seem high rye to me, and I'd say it's relatively young expression. Yeah, I agree. It's a little bit feisty. Yeah. But it's good. Why don't we take apart just for a second? I think spicy is one of those descriptors where it can help with rye to dive a little deeper. I get a cinnamon red hot spiciness from this rye. Whereas spiciness can present itself as like sweet baking spice, peppery spice. I am getting clove and nutmeg out of those sweet baking spices. I would say that. So I think more of the spice from rye tends to be those sweet brown baking spices, nutmeg, clove, some cinnamon, obviously a lot of caraway. But I think a lot of what I would normally call that cinnamon red hot candy spice tends to come more from oak barrels and less from the grain. Because I get that in a lot of bourbons. Now it could come from the rye grain in a bourbon as well. Nevertheless, I would back Roger's claim here that this does have that in spades. I think it's got a hot spice to it. Absolutely. Because of you jerks, every time I think of caraway now, I hear Roger saying, Pickle Howe in my mind. You should join the Roger Adamson Thick King Appreciation Society discord where we have lots of discussions and memes with Pickle Howes and Penguins. Pickle Howe Penguin. All right. So that was pretty good. How much do you think it costs? I think that one is probably less than 30 bucks. If I had to guess, I'd say it's less than six years old, but more than four years old, and I would say it's higher than 90 proof and less than 100 proof, and I would think it's probably around 30 bucks. I'm going to get way out over my skis here and say something that I cannot back up with any science or experience, but it has the fresh sweetness and polish of MGP, and in most but not all cases, that ends up in a fancy label that costs a little more That's fair. I'm betting it's like 35. Okay, that's fair. Strangely, I was going in the other direction. Cheaper? I think it's a good kind of mid 20s something or other. Under 30 and youngish. The sweetness reminds me of Templeton. Is Templeton one of the options here? I don't remember. Good enough. If somebody is new to rye and they're trying to describe these, what would you say if people are experiencing the spiciness? Would you attribute it in most cases to the grain or the alcohol? When you're differentiating between proof level versus just the spirits characteristics itself? I would say the grain here with rye for sure. I mean, I totally understand that some people are going to have alcohol proof come off as spicy or hot, but I think this is a clearly different kind of spice like Greg talked about earlier with that kind of brown baking spice character. What about yeast? Is yeast imparting fruity notes too? I don't think so. I mean, every distiller as well. We keep our proprietary, it's the same yeast, my great-great-great-great-grandpappy caught in that crick, and we keep it in a jug in the crick, and it comes to work with him every day to distill it. That's a pretty good impression of Joe Maloney doing an impression of a guy from Kentucky. But like Four Roses famously has their 10 recipes with five yeast. It's true, and they're very high rye, so there are subtle differences in those recipes. Having tasted all those recipes side by side many times, it's a very subtle influence. It's there. But it's there. For something with MGP where it's 95% rye sometimes, it's maybe not as much. They're not the only 95% rye around anymore, too. Most of the times you see 95% rye, you should assume it's made at MGP and just bottled by somebody else, but there are other distilleries making 95% ryes now on their own. Which was a barrier of equipment and expertise for a long time. Because when you're working with rye, both in fermentation and distillation, it's turning into glue constantly. The longer you're cooking it, the more water you're adding to it, it just turns into like just a cement, and it is a total pain to ferment and distill. So it was one of those things when it wasn't popular, the distillers were like, hell yeah, because it's like their worst day of the week. It's the one day they have to make rye. So. That was one of my favorite comments when we were talking to Eddie and Jimmy Russell, when they talked about how they would make the rye once a year. And how everyone would still complain about it. One day a year, they would make rye wild turkey, and everyone hated it. So number two here, little bit lighter in body, a little bit lighter in intensity, I bet it's lower proof. Notably sweeter on the nose too. Agreed, yeah. Sweeter on the nose. Still prominent spice, but less spice for sure. More bourbon-esque, I feel. Yeah, this is a bourbon drinker's rye. So this, I mean, that kind of falls in that classic Kentucky style rye. So rye traditionally really was from the Pennsylvania area. And that's where we had a lot of immigrants of Germanic descent who, you know, grew rye in Europe. And then started growing rye here. And then what do you do with excess grain on your farm? Well, you distill it because distillation is the ultimate way to preserve a grain, right? And to not have it go to waste. So the rye whiskey tradition there in the Pennsylvania area was always these very high rye content things. So oftentimes they were a mix of rye and malted rye. They were 100% rye, but you still need some bit of malt in there because you need that enzymatic conversion. You need amylase to kind of catalyze that fermentation. And would those enzymes keep it from getting as like concrete and gluey? He said amylase. I don't say amylase that much. Amylase. This is kind of a geeky question, but compared to like corn or wheat, what is the whole temperature for rye for that conversion? Do you know? Oh, it's lower. So when you go in with, it's about the same as wheat actually. So you cook corn at about like 210 degrees and you cook your ryes and wheats at about 185. So if you cook the rye at 210, it would scorch it and burn it and you'd ruin it. It would be horrible. And then you got to step it down another level to add the malt. Okay. Back to this one. So I also pick up the sour quality that I associate with sour mash sometimes, where it's, I don't know, a little vegetal. And that's probably because I'm guessing it has higher corn and it's got the more bourbon-like characteristics. Which lets me finish my previous thought. Pennsylvania rye, very dry, punchy, spicy. Kentucky style rye is just like the bare minimum rye. It's 51 to 57% rye or something. So I could see this being that Kentucky kind of tradition. So if that's why the intensity is dialed down, that doesn't mean that this is necessarily less expensive, but I'm less likely to reach for this one than the first one. Yeah, that's true. Rye is a very expensive grain. It's like four or five times as expensive as corn per bushel or something. So this does save the distillery money making a rye with a lower content of rye, whether they pass that savings on to you is- Yeah, that's the question. Questionable, yeah. Well, I will say we've kind of witnessed the explosion and the popularity of rye. I mean, I think right when I started getting involved in the spirits industry was when it was really still, there were still weren't many options when it came to rye on the shelf. You had Jim Beam rye, Old Overhold, Rittenhouse. That was it for a long time, Wild Turkey. Then this little number named Templeton came onto the stage, and people started to really fall in love with it. Bartenders subsequently started to rediscover its popularity in cocktails, and they definitely gravitated more towards Rittenhouse. But recommending rye to customers was always a bit of a challenge, because so many people got accustomed to rye through Templeton, which we now know- It's sweet. It's pretty sweet. It's on the sweeter side in general, than they even were called out for adding sweetness to it, right? Yeah, they add that flavor. They add the authentic Prohibition flavor. You mean bathtub ring? When people wanted to, they're like, I love Templeton, so I want to try other ryes, it would sometimes be funny to get their feedback then, when you offer them a different rye, and they go like, oh, this was way too spicy. It's like, well, that's the classic descriptor. Yeah. Almost better to lead them to a bourbon. Yeah. Yeah, high rye bourbon. Or these Kentucky ryes, as Pat was saying. Which is Rittenhouse and Old Overholt now, those were both mainstay Pennsylvania brands forever, but they haven't been made in Pennsylvania in a very long time. Old Overholt moved to Kentucky, right? Yeah. Yeah. A long time ago. That's like one of the oldest brands of rye out there, isn't it? Old Overholt's over 100 years old, handily. Speaking of cocktails, is there a cocktail that you guys find yourself personally always reaching for a rye instead of a bourbon with? Manhattan. Always a rye Manhattan for you? If I have a rye. If you have a rye, you're going to use a rye. I mean, who says always on anything? Of course. I can't even pick a favorite color. But for sure, you have some favoritism for rye over bourbon and some cocktails. For you, it's a Manhattan. In my jug, my mixed up jug of whiskey samples, there's always a high rye. It's always high rye because partially because the buyers around here just have leftover sample bottles and that kind of stuff. And because it gives it a mixability that bourbon doesn't have on its own. Bourbon offers so much breath and sweetness. When you can give it more spine, it'll stand up to things like coquette vermouth de Torino, which is so sweet. That's true. That's a good point. And people are just stuck on bourbon sometimes. And I think for the purposes of a classic cocktail, a rye brings a lot more complexity to the table. And it really plays off some of those more herbaceous, bitter or woody notes that you're going to find in a high quality vermouth. Agreed. Yeah, I completely agree with that. I tend to like a rye Manhattan too, for all of the reasons stated. I think that's excellent. What about you, Raj? Which tiki drink are you putting rye in? Boulevardier, I think I've really fallen in love with. I like to, when I introduce it to friends, I kind of introduce it as an improved Manhattan, so that they kind of have a point of reference, since there's a lot of similarities. But we're never going to get people to drink more tomorrow if you don't call it an improved Negroni, which is what it really is. Yeah, that's true. Of note, as I've mentioned before, with a Negroni, you always want to do equal parts. With a Boulevardier, I think you really should adjust it and have two to one on the whiskey side. If you want, sometimes I make them by mixing them one ounce of rye and one ounce of bourbon, especially if people aren't big rye fans. That's a good kind of transition into if you bought a rye and it's a little too stiff for you out front and you don't want to drink it neater on the rocks and when it makes a cocktail, you find the flavor a bit distracting, cut it half and half of For sure. Also another fun one, there's a cocktail called an American Trilogy that has, it's a Laird's cocktail and Ryan- This is the Roger we were looking for. This is it. So Ryan Apple Brandy can be a really cool cocktail too. Ryan Apple Brandy. Baked Apples, bro. Yeah, I think that's a great combo. I would also just throw out a couple rye classics like the Sazerac and- Yeah. I know Roger likes a Vuqueray as I do. I like a little rye and brandy blended together in that personally. Yeah, that's a great drink. Not enough people know that drink. I haven't made one of those in a long time. Yeah. I think I'm- Nothing's stopping you from making one for us right now. Right now. All right, let's try whisking over three. Okay. This one looks darker. Yeah, what a color, huh? Very much, yeah, deep brown. And based on the nose, I'm going to assume that it's still the dial back more corn closer to bourbon style. But with the darker color, I'm guessing it has more age. It's interesting. I am getting almost like a limestone-y aroma on the nose. That's that real pure Kentucky limestone water. It could be. This is weird. Very well, I don't know. This is awesome. It has like cola spices and root beer flavors. I love how it's not austere, but it's a little bit dialed back on the nose, and then it's just big and fat, and then it just finishes just herbal as hell. We spent a lot of time talking about spices at the beginning, but not herbs. The other side at Colonel Sanders' Secret. That's what this is. This is herbal. Very herbal. It's dried tea herbs. Very minty. Mint. Basil even. What else on the finish though? The finish is really unique. It's really hard for me to pinpoint. Yeah, this is very complex. I think this is pretty great. I like this. This is awesome. I remember most of the bottles I picked, and I'm pretty sure I know which one this is. This is awesome. It's strange to me. The nose strikes me as or it leads me to believe that when I put it in my mouth, it's going to be drier than some of the other ones. It's got that minerally spice. Like you said, it's more reserved in the fruit and stuff. But once it hits the palate, it's big and chewy and sweet. It's expansive. I mean, it's just brooding. It's all over the place. Rod, are you picking up these root beer flavors that I have? A little bit, yeah. I think what's cool is that maybe this is a great example of when things are so well integrated that you can't easily pick them apart, that's really a sign of a really well-made spirit. Kind of like me and Roger as a team. We got to start panning them. You are often conjoined. There's some dark fruit lurking underneath too. That's a great observation and I think I know which one that was. Yeah, like it almost has some rum-like quality on the finish. Yeah. Could this have been finished in another kind of barrel? Potentially. I'm going to like way go out on a limb. Is this port finished? Port? Port finished. I brought nothing port finished. What are you thinking, Chris, like Angel's Envy, something like that? I don't know. There's just a deep kind of underlying fruitiness that makes me think of there's something else going on here. Great observation. You'll have to wait till the end. Pat's so excited. I'm so excited. I love that whiskey. Based on Pat's excitement, I assume this one's pretty expensive too. I've got Captain Cheapo next to me here. I'm not bringing expensive stuff in. He pointed to Roger by the way, not me. As he pointed out the other night, he goes, sorry, Roger, no $12 bottles, to which I said, excuse me, sir, I've been drinking $22 bottles of rye as of late. That's true. He doubled his purchase price on rye with the return of Wild Turkey 101. Well, welcome to the table, Moneybags. Ooh, this is interesting. This is rye number four. We're smelling. Wow, this is really interesting. Raisins and honey. Maybe this was the barrel finish one. What's that? Raisins and honey is a great call. What's the white raisins, sultanas? Is that the kind? That's, yeah. Yes. This has like a citrus oil thing going on. Like this is like a slightly burned but sweet orange peel. I absolutely see that. But then it gets really herbal and grassy, though, on the palate. Like pencil. And that spice comes in the finish. I like this one. I can't get past the like, this may be aged in small barrels. I got nothing small barrel here. That's good. It reminds me of that, like raw wood. This is the most woody one that we've had so far. I don't mind it, though. Definitely going to say, to support that, this has the most tannic feel on the tongue. Yeah. Like wood tannins. It's very powerful in the oak expression. I think this is pretty high rye, but I don't think it's like the MGP rye though. It's also, the alcohol is not overpowering. So I don't think it's super high proof, but it's not 80 proof either. No. Oh, is there a refresher to walk back for people that are newer to rye? People are real familiar with bourbon, how it's just straight into new oak. Would you say with ryes, most of the time it's new oak or it's cask finishing? There's cask finishing, but it's got to be new oak. It's got to be new charred oak first. So it really follows the same rules. The laws are pretty similar, right? Exactly. If it's labeled straight, then it can't have any kind of flavoring or anything in it. There's bottled and bond, it's all the same stuff. This one is superb. I really like this one too. What I find interesting is with the layer of char on the oak, I don't feel like you often get such a tannic presence in whiskies like this, but this seems to really have that texture and drying sensation in the mouth. I really like the aromas on this, but I don't care for the finish. I think it's going to stand up really well in the cocktail. Yeah. It has body to support and a spine to stand up against other stuff too. I like this one quite a bit. You guys, we can't all just like all of them and then find out what they are at the end. Well, I didn't bring bad ones. I bet that one's expensive. You think so? I think so. I'm thinking you probably won't want to put that in a cocktail when it's like 70 bucks. Roger, you'd be surprised what I like to put in a cocktail. Is it liquid? Did it come from a bottle? Is it brown? It's going in a cocktail. Is anybody else getting like a spiced pear note on the finish? Yeah, totally. We call that baked orchard fruit at the Whiskey Hotline. Yeah. Exactly. But in particular, pear. Yeah. You're talking to Harry and David over here. Don't just lump all orchard foods together. At least you've admitted that you and Chris are Harry and David. And he runs his little country mixology store too. All right. So Rye 5 here. Pretty interesting aroma. It's got the sweet spices and vanilla. I'm almost picking up a bit of a floral character that I haven't really found in the first four. I was going to call it cheese. It's a little bit of funky cheese. I get some citrus. I like this a lot. This is maybe one of the more severe ones that we've had. I'd say it's got like a rich, sweet, oak and spice balance though throughout the palate and finish. This is really good. I like this quite a bit. I agree with you, Pat. The mouth feels very buttery and sweet. Let it spice an orange peel. Baking softer baking spice and orange peel. This is another bourbon drinkers would enjoy this because of how lush it is. It finishes with such an enduring spice though. I'm still tasting this. It has the roundest mouthfeel, but it's still quite spicy on the finish. That's a good way to put it. Very round mouthfeel. Yeah. That's the quality Jim really likes in Superdog over Gene and Jude's. The roundness of the mouthfeel. They are plump dogs. Oh, he knows it. Actually, earlier he said, that's not a dog, that's a Superdog, like it's a distinct food stuff. I started saying there, they won't let you call them hot dogs. I started trashing their use of French fries on top of the dog, and he was having none of it. He defended his local joint. That's very common, having your fries wrapped with your dog. The only thing I don't like about the Superdog packaging is they really mash it in there, and then it's hard to even extract the hot dog without spilling your fries all over the place. Yeah, you got to eat all the fries first, just to get the hot dog out of the box. But that proprietary hot dog is so juicy and meaty and garlicky, it's really good. You could... It is a good hot dog. You could use a table. So it's a hot dog, it's food on the go. You have to eat it in your car, and it's either dumping your fries in your lap or not. I mean, that's like an old trucker move. But it's a drive-in, 99% of the time I've eaten Superdog, I've been eating it in my car at the drive-in. So Chris, if anyone here has had it, I bet it's Chris. Or maybe Jim, he's quite a foodie, especially Americana. Have you had Permantys, a sandwich from Permanty Brothers? Oh yeah. Sure. In fact, I have a friend who's ill and he's from Pittsburgh, and I sent him some Permanty Brothers sandwiches, which you can get, but it's hard. I mean, it's weird. He said they were good. I've never had them this way, but they mail you a kit when you got to heat the French fries up and whatnot. Sounds like stickers. I don't know how that could ever be as good as real life. No, it can never be as good. For those who don't know, it's a sandwich with French fries on it. Yeah, hence why I brought it up. It's this big sloppy sandwich, and the idea was that truckers would want just a meal and one sandwich, and then just a bunch of Pittsburgh drunks would just go there. I am a big fan of trucker food. Yeah, I know. And Pittsburgh drunks. Some of my favorite people are Pittsburgh drunks. Ransack the same roadside convenience store on a road trip. Yeah. Okay. All right. So number five, pretty damn good, rich, round. I bet this one's pretty expensive. Still awry. You think it's pretty expensive? Yeah, it might be. It's a damn good whiskey. Yeah. It tasted like it's got some years of maturity on it. I mean, you can really get a sense of vanilla from the oak, which doesn't pop through a lot on the other ones, but it's definitely there on this one. Yeah, it's my favorite so far. This one is actually the first one that I wouldn't necessarily want to mix. I think so far three and five are my favorites. I've given them the same rating. We have ride number six now. Finally. Ride number six smells like the spiced coffee cake, you know, like that spiced cake. It's got a bit of a confectionary character to it, but then there's still a spice. It's like the orange spice sleepy time tea, you know? Constant comment. Is that the one? No, but it's similar to that sleepy time one. Oh, this ride is awesome. This is another big chewy mouthful of spice, and it finishes with all that cinnamon powder. The nose is very fresh. Oh my God, this is great. It has freshness, but it has breath and spice and heft too. It's really sweet. It is really sweet, but you know. You're a little sweet boy over there. Maybe I am a little sweet boy. I haven't tasted it yet, but it's definitely vanilla-scented and rich smelling, less intensely rye-like, but incredibly pleasant. Was that five or six? Was that six? That was six. That is terrific though. That's so good. Talk about your bourbon drinkers rye. That is a hefty mouthful of rye. This is a crowd-pleasing whiskey. I don't think any whiskey fan would try this and turn it away. This is just great, great brown liquid. It's really good. It is full in the mouth. It is citrusy, but almost like a sweet citrus, not like a tart citrus, like sweet orange spice. It is layered and that mouthfeel, again, this one is another one that is just really soft and delicious. Pat, did you go back to number one? It seems like thin and austere by comparison. It's super lean by comparison. But this last one is super decadent. This is like a Christmas rye. Number one is by no means a lean whiskey. Compared to number six, it's light and airy and fresh. That's what I'm saying. But it still has its own broad mouthfeel though. Its own sweetness. Yeah. But if it's fruit, it's more like lemon. And this number six is more like the ultra spiced and cocoaed up orange. Yep, I agree with that. Spiced like clove spiked orange. Probably something, it's probably some Adamson family holiday tradition while they're wassailing. Beloved candy or something. Oh, that's good. It's pretty decadent, though. I would say it is too much for you. Taking shots. It reminds me of a Permanti Brothers sandwich. What do you think, Roger? All right, so, whiskeys one through six. Anybody have a clear favorite? Oh no. There is not a dog here. These are all so good. No, all are awesome. I didn't bring any dogs, and I knew that going into it. I probably liked three and five, I mean six was so good. Six is so good. So good, but I don't think it's that much better than three and five. Three is very good. I'd throw four into the mix there, too. I don't care for four. That's the only one that I would pass on. I don't really like three all that much either. I know you guys all love it. Finally, we disagree about something. Somebody throw a chair. I think for me, it's five and six. I think those are. Six just blows all the rest of them out of the water in terms of heft. I think it does. Wow. It's certainly the most decadent whiskey we tried. Yeah. Damn, five is so good, too. Five, I think, shows more of the classic leaner rye spice, that kind of grassier spice. Six is almost bordering on something different, almost a hybrid rum brandy. Yeah, six tastes like it could either be like, have been aged in some kind of sweet barrel, or it's like super old without getting dry. I don't even know what to think about six. It's not dried out at all, but it's got such maturity and complexity to it. It's interesting. It's like the Nutella flavored $12 whiskey. It's a whiskey smith banana. Jack Daniel's fire. All right, should we reveal them one by one? Yes. All right. Recapping our thoughts on number one. Number one. I think it's fresh. I think it's MGP. I think it's mixable. I think it's highest in rye content. I think it's also one of the younger whiskies. I really liked it, but there were better ones. I agree. Very savory. Make a good whiskey soda. A little savory soda boy here. A little savory soda daddy. A little cucumber garnish to compliment that dill. A little Sprite mix it up with a little cell ray, Roger. Oh, we were right. It's MGP. This is Rossville Union Rye. This is the standard Rossville straight rye. It's 94 proof. This is MGP's a blend of a couple rye Mashmills. This is their house brand. Yeah, cool. So this is probably not overpriced like if somebody else aged it for another three months. No, this is what I kind of wanted us to base all the other rye whiskeys on. The whole category revolves around what MGP's made in the past and currently makes. So I think this was a fair comparison. Okay. Yeah, it's a good foundational starting block. And anybody who's into whisky should definitely have tried this. You should definitely experience this as a reference point. We have single casts coming in September that are barrel proof, barrel strength, and we tasted them blind, but there were a couple of different mash bills. So some of them are 95% rye, some of them I think are 70% rye. There might even be a 51 in there. That's barrel strength hand picks? Barrel strength hand picks, MGP. And I think there's 10 or 12 of them coming. There's a lot. Listen up nerds. And what's the price point here? Price point on that one, I got to look up in my handy Binny's app, the barrel proof ones are going to be 60 bucks, I think. I would have looked it up at the phone as the speakerphone. 40 bucks, $39.99, Rossville Union Master Crafted Rye. Seems fair. Yep, 94 proof, the baseline for all the ryes in the shelf, in the store. I think we're all pretty spot on with that one, youngish, high rye. Yeah, I don't know that it's only four years old, that one might be six, I'd have to ask. All right, what's whiskey number two, Jim? Oh, Sazerac rye. That I called lighter and more watery. Yeah, we all said it was notably sweeter and fruitier. I wrote Rittenhouse or Saz, question mark. Good job, Roger. Chris, what did you think of number two? Nobody talked about number two when we were recapping our favorites. That's true. That's true. Nobody even mentioned number two. It's really good though. Oh yeah. Again, none of them are bad. It struck a middle ground for me. It was fruity and a little round and spicy, but a lot of these stood out for having really exciting character, in my opinion, and this one is good. This is the Samuel Adams Boston Lager of rye whiskey. Whoa. I guessed it at 30 bucks. How close is that? That's the only couple of bucks I have. That's exactly what we sell it at, 29.99. All right. We've been running it on sale every once in a while too, just because it's available and we have it. All right. Cool. Any other thoughts? Final thoughts? What's whiskey number three? Oh, Wilderness Trail. This is a handpick. It's Barrel Strength 110 proof. This is one of the ones that's in the stores now. I had no idea. That totally threw me for a loop. I thought for sure that was going to be one of the one that I brought that was Barrel Finish. That was the one that we kept talking about, having all the dark fruit on it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was good. Ultra sweet cola lime root beer. So that's gonna be, double checking the price here. That come from your friend? $54.99. The Amazonian Explorer. Yes, it did come from our friend, the Amazonian Explorer, Macaulay, who runs the Barrel program down at Wilderness Trail. Last time we went and saw him, he literally the previous day had gotten back from a spiritual retreat in Peru and was wearing crystals around his neck and stuff. He had been eating guinea pigs in the Amazon in Peru for three weeks. There are different kinds of guinea pigs there though. They are horrendous. Shout out to Macaulay, cool dude. Yeah, great dude. Thanks for it. $54.99? $54.99. All right. Barrel proof. Now, this barrel, this is low, this is 110. Now, they go into the barrel for aging at a lower proof, and normally the casting is around 116, but this one was kind of a low. It was 110. I mean, no water has been added, nothing like that. It's just nice, but that's a rich, awesome whiskey. Interesting that it's so easy drinking at 110 proof. And it seems older. Those guys are making great whiskey. Great whiskey. Great whiskey. All right, what's number four, Jim? Oh, Whiskey Acres Bottled in Bond. Really? Yeah. So that one is new. I said very good, but thinner. This was one of my favorites. Yeah, it's awesome. It's one of the more fruity. They definitely describe it as a bourbon lover's rye. Yeah. I want to say they're making their own rye. Are they making their own rye? Yeah, they're growing their own rye, doing everything. Everything's done there. And so they've done one release of this so far. It's probably available in maybe half the stores still. Came out earlier this summer. Throwing out the tees. Well, it's worth hunting down, man, honestly. Didn't like it. So what's the green bill on that? It's Lovefest. I didn't like it. Roger just leans in and starts a fire. Real grainy. I believe that 70 percent rye. How come? You know what? I don't think it's on our website anymore. Because it's sold through? I want to guess the next one. I bet it's Elijah. Yeah, Whiskey Acres Rye is even on the website anymore. I think it's 50 bucks. I really like that Whiskey Acres Bottom Rye. I had that as a very good. It was the same rating I gave Sazerac. I like that very much. Yeah. I really like that. That was the one. Raisins. Didn't somebody said raisins? Honey, you said then, yeah, golden raisins, sultana or something? Yep. That was a really dark color too. Roger Adamson, noted hater. Chris, what did you think of that one? Yeah, I'm trying to remember. I was foolish enough to not bring a pen and paper. That's okay. Whatever I said at the beginning of the show, it still stands. Kind of got a black tea quality to it. All right, number five. What's number five, Jim? Number five is New Riff Straight Rye Whiskey. This was a favorite of both of you guys. Yeah. I loved this one. So this is currently on sale at a Binny's near you, I think for $39.99. Let me double check that. No. Hey, was this not in Savers Splurge or am I imagining that? Was it this one or was it a different? It was the bourbon that was in Savers Splurge. Straight rye bottled in bond. So this is four, four and a half years old, 100 proof, non-chill filtered, currently on sale for $39.99 off a regular $44.99. Unbelievable. Yeah. Good deal. That's goodbye. You like that one, Raj? Loved it. And this is, their match bill is 95% rye, 5% malted rye. Really? Yeah. So they are 100% rye. Now the only way they're set up to handle that kind of rye, because the person who set up their distillery is Larry Ebersold, who was the 30-year master distiller at MGP. And then he retired, they hired him as a consultant. He set up and specialized the entire distilling kit there just to handle crazy rye. They actually have 100% malted rye whisky coming to Binny's New Year later this year. It's gonna be a six-year-old or six-and-a-half-year-old, 100% malted rye. $400. No, no, it's gonna be like 60 bucks. Oh, really? Yeah. Because they've been making 100% malted rye in small quantities every year since they opened, but they just thought it needed a little more time than this 95.5, it just needed... And malted rye is wacky, it's floral and fruity, it's crazy. When that all-malt rye hits, just bring it on by. Yeah, no, I'll bring it by the office, for sure. That's pretty cool. Nice, great job, New Riff, that thing showed magnificently. Dang, I'm tasting this again, and it is really good. It shows magnificently. I'm on a little bit of a drum roll before the number six reveal, because I'm still dancing in my pants about it, even though it's a little bit of an outlier. You love number six that much? Yeah, and my mind is reeling. Hang on, I know what it is. My mind is boggling as to what it could be. Let me pull up the price first. Okay. Okay, go ahead, Jim. Number six. Oh, this is Sagamore Spirit Distiller Select. This is the US Mail Project Edition. Okay. This is an Armagnac finish that we split with Julio's Liquors in Massachusetts. Our buddy Ryan Maloney, we've done a few projects with. The US Mail was his coin for our projects. It stands for us Massachusetts, Illinois. This is Canadian, right? No. This is MGP-made rye that was in regular barrels for three years. And then they were going to put it in an Armagnac barrel. And they said, we'll just charge you the regular price for a barrel finish Sagamore, which is $69.99. You guys keep tasting every couple of months and it's ready when it's ready. And we kept tasting every couple of months. And we kept tasting every couple of months. And after it had been in the Armagnac cast for an additional three and a half years, we were like, yeah, now it's ready. And it's on the shelf for $69.99. And it's a six and a half, it's a three year in New Oak, three and a half year in Armagnac Barrel, single cask strength rye whiskey. For 65 bucks. For 70 bucks. This is sick. And it was a 450 liter Armagnac cast. That's why we split it. Cause that's a huge amount of bottles. I think surprisingly all that time in the Armagnac cast, you can really tell that it's in some different kind of oak. There is a stronger vanilla scent. So like classic French oak notes, maybe. $69.99. There is not a lot of this left, but it's still around. It might be sold out at like, it might be sold out at some of the busier Binny's stores, but it's sitting around at some stores. And this is totally worth hunting down cause this is never going to happen again. I think that's one of the most expressive secondary finishes I've ever tasted. Yeah, you were trying to figure out what else, what are the things to be. The fruitiness was so different. It's so good. I haven't had anybody taste this and not just want more bottles immediately. Yeah. It is so good. Might have to. Well, but. Whiskey is for drinking, not for, it's not a trophy, it's a whiskey. It is really remarkable. It's almost outside of the category in its profile though. It's just so different and so expressive. None of us would shut up about how full and rich it was when we tasted it blind. Exactly. It's so good. That's 113 proof. Wow. Wow. Doesn't seem. Doesn't seem. It drinks really nicely neat. I can't believe it. Yeah. Well, that's what proper finishing time will do for you. So a lot of finished whiskeys these days, especially American whiskeys, they're finished for between 20 and 90 days. Like a lot of finished whiskeys that you have from popular brands are literally in a finishing barrel for 20 days. This too, for the listeners. That's what you call a kiss of oak. For the listeners who can't see this, I mean, this comes in a really sharp bottle as well. So if you're looking for a absolute no-brainer gift for someone who likes whiskey, grab this before it disappears. Don't sleep on the Sagamore Rise. There's a whole bunch of different barrel finishes that they come out every year. They do a couple of different barrel finish releases a year. They have a double oak that's regularly available, a cast strength that's regularly available. We've done handpicked single barrels. Their whole thing is they're trying to bring back Maryland style rye. There is some debate whether that's actually a real style or not, because before the Bottled and Bond Act, Maryland was very famous for having very fruity rye that drank really easily. And then nowadays we kind of know that a lot of distilleries were like pouring orange juice and stuff into their whiskey. And so there is debate whether Maryland was ever a unique style of rye. And then this guy Todd Leopold from Leopold Brothers in Denver found there was a unique kind of three chambered still at one of the distilleries in Maryland. That's essentially three pot stills stacked on top of each other. So it's three pots that are acting as a column. It goes from one distillation to the next to the next. So it would drip back from a pot to another pot? It vaporizes into the next one and where it continues to cook and vaporizes in the next one. But if it's a vertical and it can drip back down versus. And they charge those other pots with orange juice. Yeah, they charge the charge for the distillation of orange juice. But anyway, so he had Vendome design one. And I think he got his name on the patent too. And he's got this three chamber still at the distillery in Colorado. And we actually recently got the very first release from it was the three chamber rye. We got very little amount. It's incredibly expensive. It's like almost $300 or something for Sagamore trying to bring back the Maryland style rye, what they've been distilling their own for years now. But a lot of the stuff that they have been bottling has been a blend of really high rye and really low rye mash bills to kind of land in that middle sweet spot of rye that's, you know, spicier than Kentucky, but not as lean and punchy as Right on. Yeah, pretty cool, man. Really cool product. Well, guys, I learned something today. You got a thing for $70 barrel finished rice. The most expensive one is the best yet again. Well, if the most expensive one is $70, then Pat did pretty solid here. Yeah. Yeah. This is not a saver spurs type thing. These are all accessible rye whiskies that again, with the exception of like this is the only one off here. Even Whiskey Acres bottled in Bond will be back. Everything else is accessible all the time. These are all terrific. Yeah. I think given the overall quality of these and relative price points and the narrow price range, I still would probably land on New Riff as best quality to value ratio here. That's pretty good. For 40 bucks, you know, I'm never going to trash MGPs, but MGPs was 40 bucks too, right? And I think New Riffs is the better whisky of those two. Plus, I think it's definitely in the next level. Everyone is so obsessed with bourbon right now. We could all do better if you, you know, branched out a little. So if you want to make that transition to drinking rye every once in a while, the New Riff one is more like accessible to a bourbon drinker. Yeah. Even though it's 100% rye. Which is crazy. Yeah. But it was very lush. Very well made rye, that's for sure. All right. Cool. Pat, thank you for bringing this lineup of terrific rye. It was all rye, all rye, all rye. We made it this far. Whatever. Okay. So thanks for listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. We'll be back next week. Sagamore Spirit, great rye, no PBR. Oh, we don't have the horn this time? Okay. All right. I'll see you next week. All right. I'm Greg. I'm Pat. I'm Roger. And I'm Chris. Keep tasting. Hey, you're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, the Binny's Podcast. Busting up in your feed with another episode. This time we're, what are we doing? Settle down. You're over modulating here, buddy. We are tasting rye whiskey today. You gotta get that salesman vibe going, Greg. And like all good whiskey tastings, we're doing it blind. So, you know, people are gonna have to eat at the end of the loved one and ate one. All right, last heart reset. Let's hit reset on this one one more time.