Wilderness Trail Bottled In Bond Rye Bourbon Review

By Richard Thomas

Rating: B+

As Wilderness Trail co-founders Shane Baker and Pat Heist have declared many times, they were both huge bourbon nerds before embarking on making their own whiskey. Like many bourbon nerds, they had a fixation on wheated bourbon. On top of that, Baker’s grandmother was once employed at that temple of wheated bourbon, the Stitzel-Weller Distillery. So, the pair had their sights squarely set on making a low corn wheated bourbon.

Yet that wasn’t the only whiskey they wanted to make. The pair flipped their 64% corn, 24% wheat, 12% malted barley mash bill and simply substituted rye for wheat. The result was a low corn, but otherwise traditional bourbon mash bill, distilled to 134 proof and aged in extra seasoned, #4 alligator char barrels. Wilderness Trail’s releases are centered on bonding, so they are 100 proof and four to five years old.

A tricky thing is distinguishing between the wheated and rye versions of the bourbons, since they don’t state that on the label in the clearest fashion. Looking at this picture, you can see the black stripe across the bottom half, where it says bourbon whiskey. The black indicates it is the rye bourbon. The wheated version has a, well, wheat/gold-colored strip.

The Bourbon
This pour turns middle-amber/bronze in the glass, while the scent leads with notes of spearmint and wet grass. Further nosings brings out dual currents of candy corn and caramel with cinnamon, that backdrop being as spicy as it is sweet. On the palate, all those elements bar the grass come together, with the spearmint and cinnamon joining into a predominately spicy flavor. The funny thing about that is I found this bourbon actually spicier than the Wilderness Trail Rye, with the finish turning peppery, so go figure.

This whiskey is often labeled as a high rye, a designation I disagree with, since some bourbons have over 30% rye content in the mash. It’s a designation that needs better definition, but all the same this is a spicy bourbon, and spicy without being dry at that. It’s another example of Wilderness Trail showing off their expertise.

The Price
The official price on a bottle of this bourbon is $60, while a survey of online retailers places market pricing between $55 and $65.