Old Potrero Hotaling’s 11 Year Old Rye Whiskey Review (2017)

By Richard Thomas

Rating: A-

Yesterday I was observing that even though craft whiskey has been a thing for at least a decade, there are almost no examples of a micro-distilled whiskey that is even several years old, let alone ten. In fact, the only one I can think of is Old Potrero Hotaling’s series, a periodic line of limited edition whiskeys, and even that exception is a case in point at the same time.

First, one must recall that Old Potrero was craft whiskey before there was craft whiskey; the San Francisco distillery opened in the 1990s. The distillery set aside some whiskey for long term aging from the outset, resulting in the first Hotaling’s 11 Year Old in 2006. Batches at different ages have been released since, the oldest being an 18 Year Old from 2013. The most recent was last year’s release of an 11 Year Old.

Like all Old Potrero’s, this is a 100% malted rye whiskey, both a “single malt” insofar as Americans are concerned and a rye whiskey. It was aged in barrels previously used to mature the basic Old Potrero, and this batch was released as a single barrel expression, bottled at 100 proof.

The Whiskey
In the glass, the 2017 Hotaling’s has a golden, white wine appearance. Coating the glass yields a curtain of tears.

Taking a sniff, I found dried fruits, that fresh baked pumpernickel scent so common to malted ryes, a dollop of vanilla and a hint of leather. The latter aspect really came forward on the palate, with this middle aged Hotaling’s takes that fruity, dark rye bread character and puts a wonderful wet clay, earthy twist on it. From there the finish reverts to something more typical of malted ryes: a trickling current of molasses and pumpernickel.

The Price
A bottle of Old Potrero 11 Year Old should have set you back $115, but that was official retail. As a limited edition that has been out for almost a year, I expect the remaining examples are fetching a good bit more than that.