Johnnie Walker Select Casks Rye Cask Finish

Too smooth. No finish. It might have been the previous bourbon

Nose- oak mellowed by a nice vanilla, rye spices, and caramel. Taste- vanilla, caramel, Christmas spices, slight and I mean very slight smoke Finish- vanilla and oak linger as well as rye spices. Also that gentle smoke

Johnnie Walker Select Casks: Rye Cask Finish is a limited release from Diageo that, unlike many of JWs recent expressions, has an age statement on it (10 Years). There's been a handful of hybrid releases lately (I'm thinking of Glenfiddich's bourbon-cask finished 14 year old) so I was interested to see how this stacked up. The first thing I noticed when I put my nose in the glass was the extremely dominate rye whiskey notes. I would be curious to know just how long this was finished in those rye casks because they definitely make their presence known. When you taste the scotch, the palate is yet again dominated by rye spices. There's also vanilla and caramel and, on the finish you get the expected Johnnie Walker sea-salt/maritime flavor. If I had to guess, I would say that the blend that they used had a lower proportion of Islay scotches - either that or the rye completely drowned out the peat notes here. The interplay with the spicy rye flavors and the aforementioned sea-salt note makes this a very intriguing hybrid expression. I liked it! I wonder what's next for Johnnie Walker's Select Casks range... a sherry or port cask finished expression, perhaps?