Heaven's Door Straight Rye Whiskey

Rating: 15/23 I'm seeing now that this is MGP. Kind of disappointing. N: Fairly light, but with a clean flavor. Dill hits immediately, emphasizing the high percentage of rye. Hints of mint and anise before some sweet caramel notes come out - though not a lot of those. I get a little bit of wood, but I really have to dig past the grain for it. P: On the light side, but it isn't showing excessive alcohol. Sweet, light caramel with an oddly sweet graininess to it that makes me think a bit of corn, but that I suspect is the barley. A little wood with a hint of vanilla before some pricky spice comes out. There is of course some herbaceous bitterness here with anise dill, and a touch of mint. F: Sweet, light caramel with some lingering ginger, dill, pepper, and occasional hint of lemon - Conclusion - This is a very approachable, but also boring, dram. It's light and sweet, but also young and not terribly complex. This is probably a bit better than Rittenhouse (14/23), but it isn't as good as Russell's Reserve Single Barrel Rye (17/23). At moments, I think that it might be competitve with Pikesville (16/23), but then I also find it inferior to Russell's Reserve 10 (15-16/23). Non-transitive preferences can go straight to hell. No, I actually don't think that this is on the same level as Pikesville anymore. It's closer to Elijah Craig Small Batch (15/23) and I go back and forth between it and my bottle of Smooth Ambler Old Scout Rye Single Barrel 5 Years (14/23). I think I'm looking at a 14 or 15 here. Right now, I'm feeling like it's a 14, but looking where I've been hovering around during this tasting, it seems more like a 15. It makes me a little sad to realize that I like this more than the other Heaven's Door mainline releases. Not massively more, but more nonetheless. One one hand, Heaven's Door has done a respectable job aging (or selecting) MGP rye. On the other hand, I don't feel guilty in expecting more of a craft distillery. I'm going with a 15, but it's very borderline.