Rating: 16/23 N: This is quite a rich nose. There's rye tartness in the form of sweet tarts with a bit of peppermint, bitter grass, and orange peel. I also get a waft of banana sweetness, a bunch of toastiness, a nice light brown sugar layer, and a little mellow wood. Sort of apple pie in here too. This doesn't smell very old, but it does smell like a product that was executed with intent and not dumped at too young of an age. P: Brown sugar, vanilla, tannic (yet somewhat mature) wood, ginger, black pepper, clove, peppermint, a bit more straight-up menthol, orange extract. On the sweet side, but balanced with a bitter backing. There's some pretty substantial malt character, which I suspect means that a fairly large proportion of malted rye was used in here. It's nice and rich with a good amount of fullness, especially for such a moderate proof. F: The wood remains along with a bit of varnish, orange extract, and menthol. Long in the finish I get a faint hint of banana, possibly with a hint more of something tropical. - Conclusion - This is a really solid rye. It takes the 100% rye profile and builds it into a more hedonistic dram while also maintaining adequate complexity and great balance. It's very enjoyable. I think there must be a substantial amount of malted rye in here to generate that rich flavor. This is less crisp, spicy, and herbal than Whistlepig PiggyBack, but it isn't bourbony with corn and sour mash flavors like Pikesville is either. I'm looking at a 16 to 18. Basically, what's happening here is that this is combining general rye tannic wood with tamed versions of the fruitiness of Willett 4, malted rye richness, and rye spiciness. It's a great concept and it works really well, but doesn't quite hit the mark it needs to. Msot of the flavors are a bit thin, whereas the tannins are a bit strong. A version of this bottled at 55% to 60% ABV without substantially increasing the tannins would be killer. On one hand, I'm hoping that the tannins mellow in the bottle. On the other hand, I'm worried that mellower tannins will make this too thin. The more I taste this, the more I unfortunately struggle to get past its thickness. Here's what I'm thinking: this and (well-aerated) Whistlepig PiggyBack (16/23) are actually 16s, whereas Russell's Reserve Single Barrel Rye (17/23) and (well-aerated) Pikesville Rye (16/23) are actually 17s. The Pikesville might even be an 18. This could still be a 17, but I think an 18 is out of the question. Actually, the more I sample this, the more I think it's on the low side of a 16. This seems better than Elijah Craig Small Batch (15), but not as good as Whistlepig PiggyBack. I think that those scores were properly calibrated already, so I'm going with a 16 for this.