I’ve really gotten into rye whiskeys lately. Bourbon is great (awesome, actually), but rye offers different nuances of grain, spice and heat the same way that rye bread is more interesting flavor-wise than cornbread, IMHO. Younger ryes also drink a little better than immature bourbons, allowing them to showcase what they are and will become in the future more easily. Finally, my home mixology habits developed early in the pandemic have not ebbed even now that the bar scene is wide open, so I prefer to use rye in most of my favorite brown liquor cocktails and save the bourbon for a late-night snifter.
The first new discovery is a lovely little rye from Catoctin Creek, a Virginia distillery that focuses on rye whiskeys. Early colonists in Virginia — I’m talking Jamestown here — started growing rye and making whiskey with the grain as far back as 1607, and Catoctin Creek leans on the state’s distilling heritage with their emphasis on rye.
Their flagship whiskey is Roundstone Rye, and they’ve won a bunch of medals at spirits competitions for this fruity and nutty rye. The rye I sampled, however, was Rabble Rouser, a 100-proof bottled-in-bond that is distilled at a lower proof to extract more of the oils and esters from the sticky rye grain. In fact, there’s nothing but rye in the 100 percent rye mash bill of this spirit.
Aged at least four years, Rabble Rouser has a lovely copper penny cast in the glass and its earthy aromas surprised me on first sniff. Instead of the holiday cookie spice notes that you might expect from an aged rye, this product features the nutty and loamy aromas of the grain. On the palate, Rabble Rouser is definitely different from most big brand ryes, surprising with notes of citrus and honey along with the peanut/pecan notes detected on the nose.
As such, I didn’t even try making a Manhattan with it, fearing that dearth of spice might be lost in the vermouth and bitters of the cocktail. This is a snifter sipper for sure, and at around a hundred bucks a bottle, you’d better take small, slow sips.
The next rye to try came from Chicken Cock, the puerile giggle-inspiring distillery whose high-end Chanticleer I chronicled late last year. Chicken Cock is a part of the Bardstown Bourbon Company’s Collaborative Distilling Program, meaning that Chicken Cock designs all the mash bills for their products and their master distiller works with the team at BBC to create the final product.
Their Chicken Cock Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey is the distillery’s first straight rye product in more than seven decades, as the brand lay dormant for years. The 90-proof product retails for around $70 a bottle, definitely a premium price point but not too precious to include in cocktails — and that’s where it shines, as the base of a Manhattan or a Vieux Carré where its combination of sweet and spice plays nicely with the other ingredients in the cocktail recipes. It’s a high rye content spirit, so the black pepper and nutmeg elements come in hot. If it spent more time in barrel, those elements might give way to the vanilla of the oak, but that’s not the case here. It’s an excellent proof for cocktails, not getting lost or overpowering other ingredients. It should make for a novel addition to your home mixology arsenal.
Chicken Cock’s Kentucky Straight Bourbon is where you expect the BBC collaboration to really shine, and it does. Aged at least four years, this is an exemplary young-ish bourbon confidently created by distillers and blenders who know their stuff.
About $10 cheaper per bottle than the rye and at the same 90-proof level, CC’s Bourbon takes you on exactly the type of ride you expect from a cocktail bourbon. The nose is prototypical Kentucky, vanilla and caramel on the first approach followed by woody oak. On the tongue, there’s a lot of honey and caramel in the first sip which opens up to more tannins and vanilla in the glass. The finish is relatively short and uncomplicated, but it does leave you with more barrel than grain, giving your palate a nice warm hug of oak before fading away.Â
I’m looking forward to seeing what Chicken Cock comes up with after they’ve had more time to lay their BBC barrels down for a little longer.
