FELIPE SCHRIEBERG

I’ve received an enormous amount of new whisky to review recently, and where my last review from this flood of samples covered single malts, this one will cover many others, dominated mostly by new ryes. This batch includes a release from Michter’s, a new Rye from New York, some Australian releases, and more.

Here’s my usual disclaimer. These reviews reflect my personal views on the whisky and that these are not requested nor considered official by Forbes in any way. Often, but not always, I’ll be sent a sample or have a chance to try it at a tasting, but opinions are always my own.

A quick note about my (loosely applied) criteria. In choosing whiskies to review, I don’t have much of a requirement beyond the fact that the whisky ideally should have been released within the last few months, and that the bottles are available to buy for the general public, preferably to a global market. Also keep in mind the prices I include here may also not be the same in other places you might find the bottle.

I’ll also include some links at the bottom of this article to my past monthly review roundups as well.

The current whiskies under review. 

Here’s a guide to my scoring system. I grade whiskies out of 10 to the nearest half-point:

0-4 – Avoid this bottle

5/5.5 – Barely passable

6/6.5 – Decent enough, not really for me, but you might like it.

7/7.5 – Good

8/8.5 – Extremely good

9-10 – Absolutely superb

Black Button Distilling Empire Rye Straight Whiskey, $75, 42% ABV

Description: ‘Empire rye’ refers to the requirement that 75% of the rye must be grown in the state of New York and it must be mashed, fermented, distilled, and matured at a single New York State distillery . Here, 94% of the mash bill is Danko rye grown by Consensus Lake.

Nose: Totally weird. Mineral, carbolic, and waxy. There’s also some green apples.

Taste: The carbolic is still kicking around. It’s malty and mineral, though more aromatic ginger and lemongrass are also present, helping round out the profile nicely.

Overall: A very odd rye whiskey, but it works! 8