BlimpsGo90
Smooth Ambler Old Scout Single Barrel Rye 4 Year
Rye — Indiana, USA
Reviewed
October 25, 2020 (edited January 10, 2022)
Neat. Neck pour. I was excited to see this at Party Source today. $48 for a cask strength single barrel is pretty awesome to me.
This nose is not a typical MGP rye nose. The dill is there but it’s really faint. The nose overall is surprisingly faint. This is oddly tropical. Like a mango salsa. Then I am getting sweetness. Cinnamon sugar. Vanilla frosting. Baking spices and pepper. The nose is a bit muddied but I like that it isn’t typical MGP too.
Very nice, viscous and syrupy texture. Very syrupy and almost granular. Very dark on the tongue. Overly cinnamon-ed icing. Wow, that is an unexpected flavor bomb. It is a vanilla icing bomb. Like taking a shot of the icing in a cinnamon roll container. Then the rye really punches me in the face. Very very orange. The peppery. Back to a vanilla icing on the finish. Geez, those flavors are intense.
The nose being so subdued suckered me in for the uppercut of flavor. Very potent. My eyes are watering. And my throat is under attach by cinnamon, pepper and rye that have no intention to leave. Solid solid stuff. One of the better MGP ryes I have had because it veers in an unexpected direction away from the dill. Glad the nose wasn’t an indicator of the crazy flavors.
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Looking forward to reading your OS tasting @Bourbon_Obsessed_Lexington and hoping you find some of the older Pinhooks for cheap :)
@ContemplativeFox I hope to follow the Pinhook vertical MGP rye to 12 years if possible but guessing the cost and availability will become painful, @BlimpsGo90 I’ve really wanted to try the Rossville cask strength rye or one of their barrel selects but for the cost on this particular OS rye it’s a no brainer to grab one, thankfully I spotted one at Total Wine and will do some testing soon
I'd be very curious to try that too @Bourbon_Obsessed_Lexington . I have Templeton 4 and George Dickel here, which are both light and young but otherwise quite distinct. You're right that I was not a fan of the young JP rye (though there was something else from them that I did like). I'm increasingly thinking that the only reason MGP ryes get a bad rap is that they tend to be bottled so young.
@Bourbon_Obsessed_Lexington Very surprised how different this Old Scout is from the other MGP ryes I have right now. Rossville Union cask strength and a Bone Snapper cask strength are just a different profile all around, just leaning so much toward the dill, black licorice, and pepper.
I’d like to see (by which I mean drink) a side by side of some of the 4y sourced MGP ryes. Pinhook’s vertical rye and James Pepper come to mind. I found the JP cask rye to be rich and chocolaty although @ContemplativeFox you seemed to get some awful, astringency from JP rye if I recall. Oh the many faces of young MGP rye!
I've found MGP sometimes has a surprisingly faint nose.l relative to its palate. No idea why though.