cascode
Belgrove Rye Whisky Cask Strength Heartwood "Any Port on a Storm"
Rye — Kimpton, Tasmania, Australia
Reviewed
July 11, 2021 (edited August 23, 2022)
Nose: Bright, mineral-laced, ashy smoke, baking spices, a touch of mint. There is an earthy tobacco-like note and stone fruits as well – like apricots stewed with cinnamon and clove. The alcohol is noticeable (there is a definite "nip") and the nose is very tight when it is neat. A dash of water expands the sweet aromas and tones down the spice just a touch. Some pineapple is apparent after the whisky has had a chance to stand and open and there is a strong aroma reminiscent of mezcal or tequila.
Palate: Fruity and spicy on the arrival, with sweet cereal notes. Spices emerge boldly on the development with caraway, dill seed, powdered ginger and allspice detectable. There is a presence like toasted rye bread and again that sense of mezcal that is so often in Belgrove rye whisky. The texture is rich and oily, with a satisfying heaviness. There is a little heat but this is not surprising given the high proof.
Finish: Long. Hot spices and cereal, tailing out to an earthy aftertaste with a touch of honey and pineapple.
An excellent whisky that is, like all Belgrove ryes, identifiable as rye spirit but not quite like that produced anywhere else. It has the same light, fresh crispness as the standard 100% rye expression (which is at 44-46%), but there is more body and complexity here.
Belgrove Distillery is small scale and extremely artisan in approach. They produce only in small batches and expressions such as this are of limited availability (for more notes about the distillery and Peter Bignall see my review of “Belgrove Rye Whisky”).
Peter follows an unusual regime when making his whiskies by not fully drying the malted rye before grinding, and it is only because he produces on such a small scale and in batches that this is possible. The grinding is done in an old table-mounted, hand cranked meat mincer (!!!).
He allows the moist grist to ferment in the open air so it can be influenced by wild yeasts (but also adds commercial yeast) and fermentation is allowed to run into the secondary lacto-bacillus phase and then cease naturally. This approach decreases alcohol content but maximises flavour complexity. The wash is then distilled in his home-made direct-fired pot still that is fueled with waste cooking oil from a nearby fish and chip shop.
This batch was matured in a barrel obtained from Heartwood independent bottlers. This cask was originally an ex-port barrel which had then been used to mature Heartwood’s “Any Port in a Storm” blended malt whisky. The final result was bottled on 23 December 2019.
This was the second of five Belgrove whiskies I tasted at the 2021 Sydney Whisky Show, and was my tasting #21 of the day.
“Very Good” : 86/100 (4 stars)
P.S. Please note two small errors in the listing details: It should read “Any Port in a Storm” not “Any Port on a Storm”, and the distillery is located at Kempton, not Kimpton. Thanks, auto-spell 😡
200.0
AUD
per
Bottle
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@cascode there’s a few in the US—-Whistlepig ( which sources I think from Canada ), Coppersea ( NY distillery using only NY ingredients ), and McKenzie ( also NY). Out in AUS , you might be able to find Whistlepig, they seem to have a wide distribution
@PBMichiganWolverine That makes sense, I think it’s an ingredient that particularly lends itself to a craft production approach. I’ve not seen any US 100% rye whiskies out here but I’d love to try some some day.
@cascode I think I’ve seen a few American 100% rye, but haven’t tried any yet. It’s basically the craft distillers doing it here.
@PBMichiganWolverine One correction to the first comment below - you *can* make a 100% maize mash but you need to add a prepared amylase enzyme.
@PBMichiganWolverine The reason for 100% rye mashes being uncommon is to do with flavour and process. Rye whisky (and rye beer) can taste thin and edgy without the balancing notes of barley and particularly the sweetness and fatness of corn. Peter deals with this by means of his long secondary fermentation to produce fruity flavours, direct still heating to create a Maillard reaction and introduce caramelisation, and maturation in refill malt whisky casks to round out the profile. Also, rye mash is notorious for being “sticky” and hard to work with as it clogs the machinery and pipelines. Peter’s small-batch hands-on production process allows him to deal with this sometimes difficult ingredient in ways that would not be practical in a large-scale distillery.
@PBMichiganWolverine Malted rye has about half the diastatic enzyme content of malted barley, but this is still sufficient for complete starch conversion so a 100% rye mash works just fine. Maize is the difficult cereal to work with as its starches need to be gelatinised first by cooking and it does not contain enough enzyme to self-convert, so it is always used in a mashbill with other grains.
That open air fermentation reminds me of a very mezcal like approach. The 100% ryes aren’t common either...very difficult to work with without a bit of barley