Sonoma Distilling Co Cherrywood Straight Rye Whiskey Single Barrel Reserve

Grassy and green grape nose with a ginger, Grassy, and slightly spicy taste. Long toasted bark finish.

A generous taste courtesy of Pie Chef Guy. This bottle is a store pick and is cask strength. To start off, I like the nose, but the taste and finish were underwhelming. The nose is short and strongly laced with fresh berries and light perfume. The taste is very grainy. There is a strong note of wood shavings and a citrus cleaner (lemon pledge?). It's also a bit salty which I don't find works with the sweet citrus note. The finish takes an odd 180 leaving behind a peppery note of being kicked in the teeth by an old wooden clog.

So I'll be honest that I don't love their bourbon. In fact I've already reviewed it so feel free to check it out. That said, the rye is good and the cherrywood is my favorite. This is the one and only time they've done a cask strength pick of the cherrywood rye through a restaurant near San Jose, CA. Needless to say there were some extreme measures gone to in order to acquire this one. This stuff has the malted barley portion of the mash bill smoked with cherrywood in a makeshift smoker that the distiller described as "a half size cargo container modified as a smoker". Pretty cool. Nose: Very herbal with mint and tarragon as the primary notes. Some sweet sugar and citrus peel as well. A little astringent with some cedar wood in the background. Smells young. Flavor: Sweet and herbal with some pine notes that I associate with whiskey that needed more time in barrel. Background notes of a light maraschino cherry but overwhelmingly piney. Finish: Fairly long with some oak and a little bit of spice. Barrel spices but an overwhelming solvent cleanser note that lingers longer than I'd like. I really wanted to like this because I like the standard offering but the young age here comes through much more on the cask strength version and doesn't do any favors here. Too much pine and lemon pledge. Bummer.