Tastes

This is good, really good! I see a lot of negative Youtube reviews and i dont understand why. This is the best batch ive had since B520 so good i went back and bought 3 bottles of it. Cheers hope yall enjoy it if you can find it. 7/3/23

I don't get the high reviews on this one? I've tried over and over to try and like this bottle but i can honestly say it's just not my cup of tea. I prefer having just standard small batch Larceny over this. It's hot and the flavors remind me of green tea. I'm down to my last 1/2" in the bottle and I've felt the same way on this bottle every time. The fortunate part of this is that i picked this up for retail at an ABC state run store in NC so i didn't have to get gouged like everyone does in FL. 3/3/23

Okay I knew I liked this rye because I bought a bottle about 4 years ago and blew through it pretty quickly. Apparently I didn't rate it either. So finally I decided to go back to this bottle to see if it's as good as I remember or if I was just newer to whiskey and didn't know what the hell I was doing a few years back. So for about $26 I grabbed a bottle and checked out. Yes it is as good as I remember but for the heck of it i tried it next to Pikesville. Something to note here is, and don't be shocked..... I didn't realize that Rittenhouse was a Heaven Hill product until i flipped the bottle around to see who distilled it. I know, facepalm right? I feel like 4 years ago i looked this up and knew but for some reason i forgot, I dunno. Anywho for $26 it's completely worth the money. Next to the Pikesville it's lacking some depth and oak but the flavor is still there. I'd suggest any newbie getting into whiskey (I feel bad for anyone just now getting into it) should have this on their short list to try for ryes. It's a good investment for the cost that is also not a high rye mashbill so it won't burn your taste buds off. The bottle is very unassuming and I'm surprised that Heaven Hill hasn't changed the marketing and look of this bottle with everything going on in the whiskey world the last 10 years but they also haven't changed any of the EW designs either to entice newbies. The final word is that this bottle is certainly worth the money and should be a staple to anyone who entertains or makes drinks for guests regularly who doesn't want to be using Boss Hog to make an old fashioned for a guest.

Not being an Old Forester fan at all i wasn't sure what to expect and really didn't want to like it. The local bar in my neighborhood has the entire lineup of OF product and this year they got two bottles of the birthday bourbon 2021 and 2022. I tried the 2022 and paid what i thought was a pretty fair price of $30 a pour since i've literally never seen this anywhere-especially not the bar that is walking distance of my house. :-) So with my expectations set low i took a sniff and was impressed at first sniff. I thought to myself damn this smells nothing like their other stuff. Sweet aroma caramel & sugar cookies. At this point I'm pretty impressed but will it taste as good as the smell? I've been fooled before. Taking a sip was probably one of the easiest drinking sweet tasting bourbons i've had touch my mouth. I'm genuinely blown away by how good this is. Luckily the girl who's bartending knows us from being up there almost every day for the last 7 years so she doesn't pour 2 oz pours when we come in and man i'm glad because this stuff is liquid gold. I'm sure anyone reading this is like yea sure it can't be that good. Trust me it is. Just when i thought I'd tasted almost everything and had begun getting bored with bourbon i taste this and man it reinvigorated my senses to taste something so good. If you can find this for a decent price, buy it. I still don't justify any liquor being purchased at secondary values but I'd pay double retail for this just not 10x. 2/14/23

This barrel was chosen by a friend of mine who lives up in NY. Previously he purchased a Knob Creek barrel and was asked by many in the bourbon community to do another barrel so he worked with Staves & Grain to pick this 7 year rye and once again he killed it. So this bottle i really wish i would have bought more than one because it is amazing. It has all the MGP rye flavors that we love. These guys at S&G know how to pick barrels and so does RJ. The smell is classic aged MGP rye so delicious. I'm a sucker for a good MGP rye and this one smells so good. Not as good as the GTS but it's top 5 for scent for me. I sampled these back to back with the GTS and i honestly like the flavor a smidge better on this than the GTS. The smell goes to GTS by a long shot but this is an excellent rye that's spicy and sweet. the 119.2 proof is perfect. Geez i really love this bottle. They say to share with your friends your special bottles and this one was a special bottle that i shared with some friends i've known for a range of 20-30 years and though some of them aren't whiskey drinkers they said this whiskey was amazing. So hats off to RJ for this pick. The picture is of myself and 3 longtime friends who are also friends with RJ who did the barrel pick.

This was my other special occasion bottle i was waiting to open once i finished my MBA. This along with the ORVW were found at a local Walmart liquors for retail. I honestly at times thought of just selling them both for the profit but when else am i ever going to have a chance of finding these at retail? Well here goes. Upon opening the Stagg you get a nice oaky, cherry scent. Really mesmerizing smell. It's the BT smell but notched up. I could sit and just smell this all day. To make sure i wasn't being biased i grabbed a Blanton's, Buffalo Trace, and Weller to smell and they are not even close to the great scent this bottle has. Moving on to sipping this I found it to be a good sip. Knock your socks off? No but the flavors are rich. I get a lot of wood/oak. It's pleasant but I'm not sure how the Distiller score is a 98. I did pour a little Blanton's to try side by side and sure it blows Blanton's away but this is not the best bourbon i've ever had. It's really good yes but not in my top 5. Honestly the THH i had a couple years earlier at a bar was by far one of the best I've ever had. Another one that's not secondary price worthy and i'll never understand anyone who has money to piss away like that would want to spend $$$$ on bottles of booze. Verdict is that this is good. Really good for the BT line up and a step above any of their standard offerings and if i found it again for $107.98 I'd buy it in a hearbeat but my max would be double that unless i were to find to flip but those days of finding any BTAC at secondary are long gone. 2/10/23

I’ve been saving a few bottles for occasions specifically I had a big occasion to celebrate finishing my MBA ack in December so I opened this one and a BTAC GTS. Both acquired at Walmart back in 2020 at retail. Yes Walmart. Yes retail. So knowing I paid retail and not ridiculous secondary prices my expectations were set not based off of some hyped up bottle i overspent on but actually what’s inside of the bottle. So here goes. At first smell I get the usual Buffalo Trace/Weller smell. It’s so obvious compared to other brands in my opinion. They literally all smell the same to me. So if you like BT product you’ll like this one as it smells. I poured a fairly large pour for myself and my drinking buddy who we share everything with each other clinked glasses and gave her a taste. Initial thoughts were “hmmm this is Weller 107 but less harsh” not that W107 is harsh but this just tasted a bit more refined. After have a few more pours of this my friend and I realized we drank a quarter of the bottle unknowingly. It’s good shit. Is it $700-900 good absolutely not. I paid $80 and I’d maybe pay $100 but that’s my max. Sure maybe if I saw one for $200 I’d think about it only because I know I’d have a hard time finding another for that price but it’s not a $700-900 bottle sorry fan boys. Long post I apologize but this was good, very good but not worth the crazy secondary prices. 1/28/23

Not a fan of this even after multiple attempts. With ice it’s drinkable but I’m just not digging it. Straight ethanol on the nose, flavor is lacking, and it burns like hell. 1/3/23

Found an older bottling of this from 2017 on the shelf for 2017 pricing. This one seems to be less herbal than the double rye and the particular one I have I’m not 100% sure I’m impressed as I should be since I LOVED the older double rye. Maybe a comparison one day if the DR next to the RR. Overall just average to me nothing crazy about this one. 1/12/23