Two new releases from Beam Suntory on the Overholt line in one year? Yes, please. I picked up the 10 Year Cask Strength first but haven't opened it yet since $100 whiskies tend to be special occasion whiskies for me (meaning football season with my dad). This one, the Monongahela Mash, I got last Friday and had been meaning to pick up for a while. Had to snatch up the 10 Year CS quick because I missed out on the 11 Year from a few years back. Kept meaning to get to it, but never found myself picking it up and then, it was gone. Vanished from the shelves. I've always liked Overholt as a budget rye. There are a lot of good budget ryes out there, a few I would say are better than Overholt Bonded, but Overholt Bonded can hold its own straight or in cocktails as an enjoyable sip that won't break the bank. Initial reviews I've read of the A. Overholt Monongahela Mash have noted that it tastes good, but Breaking Bourbon quibbled with the price vs. age. A 4-year rye, they claim, shouldn't cost $40. But then, if you think of all the NAS scotches these days going for over $100, dropping $40 on a known quantity doesn't seem so bad. Now whether it's better than other ryes in its price range is a matter for debate. Overall, the end product is solid. Because the mashbill is 80% rye, 20% malted barley, you get a nice mix of sweet and spicy all around, and the nose, if I'm not mistaken, is reminiscent of another great budget rye, the standard Sazerac, in that the nose has a good mix of cherry cola aromas with vanilla and rye spice. The palate brings the spice forward with a little bit of heat and pepper and clove, but maintains the fruity edge of cherry in the background. It's not amazingly complex, but the flavors mix well on the palate, the finish is moderate in length, not particularly long, but not coming in too short either. Sort of a goldilocks finish in being just right. Overall, Breaking Bourbon might be right about the price point. While it's not going to break the bank, it's similar enough to Sazerac in my opinion that at $10 cheaper, I'd likely reach for another bottle of that before I drop the money on this again, but I certainly wouldn't tell you to avoid it if your curiosity is piqued and you're in the mood for something new. I don't have an open bottle of Sazerac with me right now so I can't compare them side-by-side though that might be interesting given how this reminds me of that. Also, I don't know how far this goes with the rest of you, but I love the look of the bottle, and it sits nicely displayed on the shelf. The brown tint gives it an old-timey medicinal feel from the good ol' days when doctors prescribed whiskey as a cure-all. Sure, the other Overholt bottles have the same tint, but this one has the angular shape and that picture of the balding mustachioed Overholt on the neck label as if to say, this has stature, look at this respectable old man gussied up like your grandpa. Don't you trust him? Well, at this point, I do. I like Overholt. I'll probably keep trying their new releases the more they emerge. Given I'm only the third reviewer here, I hesitate to bring down its 4-star aggregate rating by giving it a 3.5 (that usually starts to imply to people's minds that this is a subpar whisky when it's far from it), but this really is a solid 3.5 in my book when weighing all the factors including price. So, if you're into rye, try it. If you like your ryes with some sweetness mixed in, try it. If you're into bourbon, you might still like this one, though there's enough spice on the palate that it might put the candy-drinking bourbon drinkers off. That's okay. You can't please everyone all the time. Can't wait to get to the 10 Year CS myself though. Oh, the anticipation!