Vintage Rye 23 years old / 47% / 0.75l

Vintage Rye 23 years old is a product of Kentucky Bourbon Distillers, more recently better known as Willett Distillery.

In 1984, Thompson Willett's son-in-law, Even Kulsveen, bought the bankrupt family distillery and started bottling whiskey. Several of his brands, such as Noah's Mill and Rowan's Creek, achieved measurable success and allowed the distillery to be restored and distillation to resume in 2012. Vintage Rye 23 years old was bottled around 2008, which means that the whiskey was distilled in the 1980s, when a few plants produced rye distillate for 1 to 3 days a year. We do not know how Mr. Kulsveen managed to locate such an old rye whiskey, but from his office window you can see the Heaven Hill warehouses, and the long-standing cooperation of these companies is no secret.

Nose: lots of oak and spices, tobacco, leather, burnt wood, caramel, vanilla, anise, pepper, bitter almonds, traces of resin, basil and mint.

Palate: strong oak tones, pepper, nutmeg, cigar, rye bread toast, caramel, vanilla, bitter orange jam and a mixture of dried herbs.

Finish : long, strongly oaky and spicy, with notes of dark chocolate, tobacco and leather.