Rossville Union Straight Rye Whiskey Barrel Select

One of the better ryes I’ve tried. No funkiness in this one, just a lot of spice, caramel, and dark fruit on the nose and palate with a medium-long finish. Just a great barrel selection by Someone Say Whiskey!

Straight pickle juice. Disgusting

"2019 selection from Big Red Liquors, bottle #40 of 240, nicknamed "Savory." Now I love a good spicy rye, in fact, all rye should focus on the spice, but a savory rye is much harder to find, and even harder to master. I definitely know I won't be pursuing the sweet version, but considering how hard to the "savory" barrel pick is outside of Indiana, I'm glad I got it. The same color as the other barrel pick I've tried, but this is pretty expected. The scent is a great balance between raw grain and spicy rye. The spice grows, eventually making me pull back from the ethanol. When I go back to smell again, I get a very faint hint of tropical fruit (banana?), which spells good things for a savory profile. A medium raw grain begins the flavor, with the tropical fruit thought popping back into my head right before the rye spice grows to take over. Once this peaks, if you don't introduce air, then it ends here and it's a pretty good rye whiskey. However, if you introduce air with the finish, it almost becomes a banana flavored whiskey. What makes this even better is the spice factor doesn't back down, so you're still well aware that rye is the star here. Savory is such a difficult flavor profile to get right, especially when most people prefer sweet, spicy, or something else before savory. Even then, it's much harder to get right in a whiskey, especially a rye whiskey where spice should always be the main focus. Tropical fruit and banana isn't necessarily the first thing I think about when I think "savory," but as far as tasting notes go in a whiskey, I think this barrel nailed it. This is a great pick, with the only disappointment being that this barrel pick profile is infinitely spicier than the "Spice" pick, which is worlds upside-down. The only way I can see this barrel or profile being approved upon is if it was left at barrel proof. At that point, I'd be happy to pay double without question to keep this flavor profile around on the bar.

2019 selection from Big Red Liquors, bottle #39 of 240, nicknamed "Spice." MGP is an absolute leader when it comes to rye whiskey, and Rossville Union (among other products) proves it. Prior to this bottle, I've only had the barrel proof, and that's all I needed to sample before pursuing more. I've seen this single barrel pick and two others ("Savory" and "Sweet," the former of which I also purchased) about a year ago, and I don't know why I haven't purchased sooner. Excited to find out if it was worth the daydreaming or not. Good color, moderately dark. In my mind, I know exactly to what whiskeys I'll compare this, being that this is supposed to sell the spicy side of rye. Disappointingly, it's actually corn sweetness that I get most on the nose, which I would imagine makes up a large part of the brother mash bill used which only contains half the amount of rye (rye whiskey should never see the light of day if made with less than 95% rye). I can smell good, fresh rye as a grain, yet mellowed some by the barrel, but really the only spice I'm detecting comes from the ethanol. Thankfully, the taste does build to some spiciness. The initial flavor is still a majority of sweet, but the rye spice digs into the gums to burn from the inside rather than on the whiskey itself. This is enjoyable and burns even hotter with introduced air, but the finish presents a curious malty note, which does not blend well at all with the fresh grassy and minty flavors of the rye grain that also come out during the finish. The continuing burn is decent, but not really all that unique. So, this is good, and if this is anything like what standard Rossville Union tastes like, then it's definitely a winner. My beef is that someone, somewhere, thought that the predominant flavor here was spice, compared to the other barrels tasted. If this is truly the spiciest barrel offered that year, then I yield, but I doubt it, because I've had plenty of rye whiskeys that can burn like horseradish, and MGP should certainly be a distillery to figure out that magic recipe. Although, as I said earlier, the issue may lie in the use of the super low 51% rye mash bill (if truly used in this batch), because the real key to making a rye whiskey spicy and sticky to the gums is, if you can believe it, rye.