By Randall H. Borkus Rating: A- With the end of the first quarter of 2023, WhistlePig Farm brought the market a new whiskey called “The Béhôlden,” their first ultra-aged single malt. WhistlePig have  sourced from Glenora Distillery in Nova Scotia. For those who aren’t familiar with them, they were the first distillery to make single malt in North America in ...

By Andrew Graham Rating: B I have become quite a fan of most of what’s in the George Remus portfolio. We’ve talked about Remus here before, but in short, it is one of two in-house brands of MGP, the distillery on the Indiana-Kentucky border that’s more commonly associated with large-scale contract distilling. What’s easy to miss about MGP is that ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ A few years ago, the folks in Lynchburg, Tennessee decided to do a special release of their relatively new rye whiskey (after a series of teaser releases, the flagship JD Rye came out in 2017) by taking it cask strength and single barrel. That was apparently well enough received that its now a permanent fixture: ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ Diageo’s Orphan Barrel line, which in practice is built around sourcing middle and ultra-aged whiskeys drawn from their worldwide portfolio specifically for the American market, has released its first-ever rye whiskey. Because Orphan Barrel has been around for a decade, its an interesting choice to do so now. The whiskey is sourced through an unnamed ...

By Richard Thomas Average Rating: B- The Old Elk brand got started with a blend of bourbons, crafted by former MGP Master Distiller Greg Metze. Their next step was to expand the line with a straight wheat and a straight rye whiskey. All three are sourced, and the sourcing remains undisclosed. Old Elk’s rye uses the familiar 95% rye mash ...