A beautiful, lovely rye, leaning toward the softer end of the rye spectrum, and not going overboard on the barrel-influence because it was aged in re-used barrels (this juice was no doubt destined for Canadian whisky blends before High West rescued it). Creamy, honeyed, vanilla, and melon on the nose. Caramel and slight, soft wood. Baking spices--gentle clove, rye bread, caraway, slight pickle. The taste is equally creamy and soft, with more melon, ginger, vanilla, honey, wood-smoke, caramel, slightly tart apple, and baking spices and brining spices. Tremendously flavourful while being very balanced, very restrained, and very elegant. Slight dry, citrus pith, woody barrel finish. All things being equal, this is undoubtedly a five-star whiskey. And yet I can't say it's an absolute must-try either, because it's fundamentally no better than the much more widely available High West Rendezvous Rye (different than, but certainly not demonstrably superior to), a whiskey that's more widely available for a quarter of the price.