Tastes

The nose has honeycomb, minerals, heather, orange tang, and peat. The smoke phenols are grassy, like a dried, dead overgrowth entwined with cooked fruits from the sherry casking. Palate has spiced apples, fruitcake, candied nuts, brown raisins, and brine. The finish shifts sharply toward black pepper and an unusual herbal fruit note not unlike junipers--rather uncharacteristic but a welcome distinctive in this fairly short but poignant finish. Also finishing are smoked meats and musty wood.

Distinct from other rye offerings with its focus on core rye bread and spice character, Rittenhouse Rye opens with rye bread, cinnamon, caraway, clove, nutmeg, cherries, dark maple, and black tea in the nose. Here, caraway steals the show, both for its prominence and its distinctiveness among the notes typical of other ryes. The palate reveals more citrus character, biting rye spice, baked apples, pumpernickel, black tea, orange rind, black soda, and then dries neatly into a drawn out finish which introduces at last menthol to its layered presentation of rye spice character. Warming, with a powerful spice character.

A boozy nose bursts with notes of wood polish, demerara syrup, honey roasted peanuts, sweet oak, dark toffee, and banana. There's corn mash here, too, and hints of the sticky-sweet proof bomb lurking therein. Finally, there's a fleeting medical woodsy on the tail end of the nose that is not unlike an authentic root beer, anise, or horehound candy. It's a caramel bomb--and one for those who like not only dark sugars, but slightly burnt ones as well. Yet all the while, there are the assertive banana and clove notes. The palate is oily, leading at first with beer nuts, old wooden furniture, black tea, fruity pepper, clove, and slight tannins which are subdued enough not to distract from the sweetness. The caramel is still here, and shifts immediately into the first and most prominent note of the finish: leather. It's like licking a new saddle-hide wallet. There's also peanut brittle, charred oak, and more bananas. Seriously, there are lots of bananas. The note with the final word is the medical earthy tea flavor accompanied by an effervescent warming sensation. The finish lasts quite a while and is impeccably smooth and sweet for the proof. An excellent whiskey!