Jack Daniel’s Tanyard Hill Single Barrel Rye Whiskey Review

By Richard Thomas

Rating: A

I just finished the manuscript on a new book about Buffalo Trace, and a feature of Buffalo Trace nerdom is knowing all the details of their esoteric collection of warehouses found on their main property. The immediate climate for these buildings are all the same, but they come in so many shapes and sizes that the distillery has several imprints it can make on maturation. The exploitation of this feature in product development is something other distilleries have only just begun to adopt and build in just in the last few years.

At Jack Daniel’s, this first took the form of the Coy Hill Single Barrel whiskeys. Released in 2021 and 2024, these were huge hits with the enthusiast community, part of a 1-2 punch from Lynchburg when combined with their new age statement Tennessee Whiskeys. These were drawn from the upper floors of rickhouses sitting atop Coy Hill, which overlooks the distillery proper.

Now they have followed this with a different location and their rye whiskey to create the Jack Daniel’s Tanyard Hill Single Barrel Rye. As Jack Daniel’s puts it, if you are in Lynchburg and standing outside their hardware store, look dead ahead and you’ll see Tanyard Hill. Again, the barrels chosen for use were from the upper floors, and in this instance from a warehouse described as one of the oldest Jack Daniel’s owns, Barrel House 1. The barrels chosen were filled in 2015, with an age that says they are either 9 years and several months or just over the 10 year mark, although the barrels in question are not identified in those terms. Fans of so-called Hazmat Whiskey should take particular note, because this release is at cask strength and the proof range for individual barrels is stated as 130.2 to 148.8 proof. Above 140 puts it in the Hazmat range.

The Whiskey
My sample came from the barrel that punched at 145.9 proof (72.95% ABV). Whiskey like that is not quite strong enough to run all car engines properly, but could run some of them with some knock. It goes without saying that, after testing the nose gently, I took mine with a generous splash of water.

I took in the nose, which was just as potent and ballsy as one would expect from a fully mature, top floor-aged rye, even after dialing it down a bit. Hot cinnamon and earthy cocoa mingled with dried cherries, rum-soaked raisins and dried banana chips, all this dipped in caramel. All that followed straight into the palate, with the addition that this fruity, spicy, earthy candy has been skewered with a sliver of charred oak. The finish turned away from that well-balanced picture to a somewhat drier, more definitively leathery, cookie spice-driven finish.

I just adored it. In my opinion, the main virtue of Hazmats is not in the ultra high proof of the whiskey as it appears in the bottle, but in the maturation chemistry that allowed the whiskey to achieve that ultra high proof. Describing how that works is the subject of a whole essay in and of itself, but suffice it to say Tanyard Hill Rye is an outstanding example of how that can work in practice. Moreover, because it is a Jack Daniel’s rye, the combination managed to press the rye whiskey button in my brain, zeroing in on what I love about rye whiskey with panache.

Let my endorsement be clear: if I see this in the store, my question won’t be should I snag it, but whether to get one bottle or two.

The Price
The MSRP is $80.