Kentuck Owl Straight Rye - Batch #2 11 years old - 101.9 Proof Have had this open for nearly a year and wanted to finally give this a proper review. Nose: One of the few American whiskies I have been able to smell prominently away from the glass. There is a sweet cherry yeasty-ness wafting while I pour and then stand just a few feet away. Smells like if you take a cherry sour candy and crush it between your fingers after hauling hay in an old barn. Tangy-sweet, dry vegetation, and worn oak. Deep sweet caramel bordering on cream soda. Butterbeer! Thats it! Cherry Sours, Butterbeer, honey, and old barn hay (in a great way). Taste: So composed. No one thing immediately jumps out but rather the mouthfeel is what is appreciated first. Typical “rye spice” and punchiness is much more subdued than other ryes. Cream soda effervescence. The cherry turns darker almost burnt, oak is more prominent, and the tingly herbal qualities are much more prominent. Oak tannins finish out alongside warming baking spices. Finish: After I swallow the experience of this whiskey settles under my tongue and I feel a little Kentucky Hug. This is a friendly and warming rye. A “log cabin up in Aspen” rye. There is kind of a “grass in the pool water” note I get when I chew. I read a review that mentioned honey drizzled over a slightly green haybale and that is accurate. Cherry Sours come back only in the retro-nasal. TLDR; Tangy syrupy sweet, butterbeer, honeyed hay, and oaky. All bound together with rounded cohesion. I was generously gifted this bottle by someone I have come to know through work. A very kind and generous man. Thank you, RS. Fun fact: I had a blind rye night with the boyz a while back and this ranked number one overall that night. First place was this Kentucky Owl, second was JDSBBP Rye, and third was WT Rare Breed Rye. We wished we had included one of our bottles of Alberta Premium CS in the line up, but still felt decently confident this still would have finished first. [Caveat: that many ryes in succession and doing the tasting blind broke us on enjoying rye for a bit. Not that we got shlammered, but that we realized how great bourbon really is.] All in all as far as ryes go I dont think there is much better except for THHandy and *maybe* some other aged stuff. JDSBBP Rye, Rare Breed rye, and Alberta Premium are the only other ryes I think I’ll ever reach for when this goes. 89/100 4.25 is not enough but 4.5 is too much.