Rabbit Hole Starlino

RABBIT HOLE SHOWDOWN Rabbit Hole Heigold Kentucky Straight Bourbon Rabbit Hole Cavehill Kentucky Straight Bourbon Rabbit Hole Dareringer Straight Bourbon Finished In Px Sherry Casks Rabbit Hole Starlino I was introduced to Rabbit Hole at a tasting I attended a few years ago with the founder, Kaveh Zamanian. I’d seen the distinctive bottles on store shelves, but never pulled the trigger. In my experience, distinctive bottles and labels are often more about marketing than the whiskey they contain. That is not the case with Rabbit Hole. I’m very impressed with the quality, attention to detail, and information transparency that this distillery embraces. Rabbit Hole Heigold Bright orange amber (Pantone 152). Nose shows chocolate covered cherries, a touch of peanut brittle, buttered pancakes, apple cider, balsam, a little spearmint. Pleasantly viscous mouthfeel, with orange oil and clove coming on, followed by a little heat kicking in on the finish, with more chocolate-covered cherries and some oaky vanilla, akin to a woody orange creamsicle (in a pleasant way), followed by a lingering spiciness. Great depth of flavor, sweet, and very smooth. Rabbit Hole Heigold can be found for under $65. Would I buy it again? Yes. 4.25 on the Distiller scale. Fingers crossed that RH won’t start raising prices too much once they have age-statement releases available. 95 proof. NAS. Non-chill filtered. Mashbill: 70% Corn, 25% Malted Rye, 5% Malted Barley Rabbit Hole Cavehill Virtually identical orange amber as the Heigold (Pantone 152). Nose shows caramel apples, Honey Nut Cheerios, balsam, and some ethanol. There’s a whiff of dust that I typically associate with Wild Turkey. Similar light viscosity as the Heigold. I get some peanut on the palate. Some oaky woodiness on the back end, along with cinnamon red hots, vanilla, and again, chocolate covered cherries. The heat comes across a bit more than what one would think given the 95 proof. Rabbit Hole Cavehill is very good, and smoother than the high-rye Heigold, but lack’s the Heigold’s complexity. It’s very good, and can be found for $55-60. Would I buy it again? Yes. 4.0 on the Distiller scale. 95 proof. NAS. Non-chill filtered. Mashbill: 70% corn, 10% malted wheat, 10% honey malted barley, 10% malted barley. Rabbit Hole Dareringer Dark amber with a faint rust tint (Pantone 159). Chocolaty notes of fudge, cocoa powder, Cocoa Puffs cereal, raisins, honey, spearmint. Almost like a mudslide slushy cocktail. Palate has both breadth and depth, and more intensity than the nose. The ethanol, shrouded on the nose, makes an appearance on the finish. Angel’s Envy was the first (or one of the first) bourbons to follow the common Scotch whisky practice of finishing maturation in sherry casks. But Dareringer does it far better (side note: I need to do a sherry-finished bourbon Showdown). Rabbit Hole Dareringer can be found for around $80. Would I buy it again? Yes. It’s very, very good. 4.5 on the Distiller scale. 93 Proof. NAS. Non-chill filtered. Mashbill: 65% corn, 25% wheat, 10% malted barley. Rabbit Hole Starlino A shade lighter amber than the Heigold and Cavehill (Pantone 138). Unmistakably rye. Sweet red grapes, rosemary, sage, rye, baking chocolate, mown grass, and some cooling menthol. The chocolate and herbal notes predominate on the palate; some nice rye spice kicks in on the back and. The higher alcohol is kept in check (despite this being the highest proof of the four), and a sweet medium-length finish follows. Rabbit Hole Starlino is finished in Hotel Starlino Rosso vermouth. I received this bottle as a gift at the aforementioned Rabbit Hole tasting that I attended a couple years back. Only 2112 375ml bottles were produced, and it was available only at the distillery. It does not seem to be available online, and I have no idea what it was priced at. Would I buy it again? Yes, assuming the price was right. It’s very good. 4.0 on the Distiller scale, down slightly from the 4.25 on my last review. 105.6 proof. NAS. Bottle #446 of 2112. These four Rabbit Hole bottlings (there are others) are different whiskies. The Heigold is “high rye”; the Cavehill has a four-grain bourbon mashbill; the Dareringer is a sherry-finished bourbon; and the Starlino is a Kentucky rye finished in vermouth casks. I prefer the Heigold to the Cavehill; it is sweeter and more complex. The Dareinger is a different animal, and arguably more complex than the Heigold, with a great depth of flavor. The Starlino, being a rye, is a different animal. Not that these Showdowns are contests: rather, they are exercises meant to show the different aromas and flavors that one can detect when compared against other whiskies or spirits, and hopefully provide a clearer picture of the relative aspects of each, in a way that may offer more focus than in a single-whisk(e)y tasting (though of course I do those as well). When Rabbit Hole was created in 2012, they sourced whiskey from New Riff distillery. However, they’ve been producing their own product since 2018 (I think the Starlino was the first release that was entirely from the distillery). The company touts their offerings as “super premium” on its website, and who am I to disagree? They are very good, and my sense is that Rabbit Hole bourbons and ryes are only going to improve as their stocks continue to age. N.B. All spirits tasted neat in a Glencairn glass.

RYE SHOWDOWN #2 Sazerac Rye Straight Rye Whiskey Rabbit Hold Starlino Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey Finished in Vermouth Casks Continuing my recent foray back into ryes (see “High Test Rye Showdown,” 8/17/22): with four left in my collection, I decided to break them up in batches of two. These two comprise, in my estimation and memory, the better half. Sazerac Rye Sazerac Rye is a Buffalo Trace (Sazerac) product, and as such needs little introduction. Apparently it once carried a 6-year age statement, and is often referred to as “Baby Saz,” ostensibly the younger brother of the BTAC Sazerac Rye 18, and/or the BTAC Thomas H. Handy. The mashbill isn’t definitively known but is believed to be just 51% rye. I’ve had bottles on hand for years, and have regularly had it neat and in a Sazerac cocktail. Bottled at 90 proof. Deep, clear, honeyed amber color. On the nose, rye is noticeable, but is suppressed with bourbony notes due to the other 49% of the mashbill. There’s also caramel, dark chocolate, clove, anise, vanilla, and a cool lingering spearmint in the background. Fantastic sipper but lacking some rye typicity (due to its bare-minimum rye percentage). Smooth: downplayed ethanol, with subdued rye spiciness on the finish along with some vanilla. Baby Saz isn’t showy. Its biggest attributes are its lack of rye typicity, its smoothness, and its often-less-than-$30 price tag. While I at least try everything neat, with the smoothness and gentle minty coolness, I could see this over a little ice on a hot summer day, or in an interesting nontraditional Mint Julep, and certainly in a Sazerac cocktail. This is one to always have on hand. 4.0 on the Distiller scale. Rabbit Hold Starlino I received this as a gift at a Rabbit Hole tasting I attended earlier in the year with Rabbit Hole’s founder, Kaveh Zamanian. Starlino is part of RH’s cask strength distillery series, and is the first spirit distilled entirely at the RH distillery. It is finished in vermouth casks, and as such perhaps isn’t the best side-by-side pairer with the Baby Saz. Starlino was originally available only at the distillery, and does not appear on the website. Only 2112 375ml bottles were produced; mine is Batch 0352, bottle 0446. Bottled at 105.8 proof. Color is virtually identical to the Baby Saz, despite the vermouth cask finishing. Nose shows some immediate ethanol in comparison (not detrimentally so), as well as cedar, pine, brown sugar, clove, and a coolness not unlike one would imagine finely ground Life Savers wintergreen candies. There is caramel here too, and a soft roasted marshmallow. The rye aspect on the nose seems a bit subdued here as well: not by the low rye percentage, but perhaps the vermouth finishing. The palate is refreshing, almost fruity, with an apple cider element, some heat and rye spice, and a lingering vanilla finish. Very nice. Would love to have more, but it is apparently no longer available. I’m quite happy to have my single bottle. 4.25 on the Distiller scale. This rye pairing is less of a showdown than an excuse to drink two simultaneously. Both get high marks for slightly different reasons, and I would always want both in my collection. N.B. All spirits tasted neat in Glencairn glasses

Nice amount of rye spice present

Very unique with strong spice notes