High West Rendezvous Rye
I Am Rye! Hear Me Roar!
0 1089
Review by @dbk
- Nose~
- Taste~
- Finish~
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High West Rendezvous, distilled in Park City, Utah, is a blend of two straight rye whiskies: a six year-old (95% rye, 5% barley malt) and a 16 year-old (80% rye, 10 % barley malt, and 10% corn). It is not chill-filtered. I sampled from batch 44, the current batch available at liquor stores in Québec (and, presumably, elsewhere), at a restaurant in Montréal. I may or may not have started my meal there with deep fried cubes of foie gras.
The body is oily, the tears seemingly taking ages to form. The color is a beautiful, dusky copper brown. On the nose, I catch rye bread, caraway, vanilla custard, and a dank, earthy under-layer. The palate yields big surprises: with utter disregard for civility, there’s an explosion of spicy, slightly bitter, pumpernickel rye bread. It is unquestionably pumpernickel rye, with mushrooms spread abundantly overtop. The bitterness lingers on the back of the tongue, but a subtle sweetness balances the effect on the front, as if the tongue is a seesaw.
Given Utah's tempestuous relationship with alcohol—they remain among the minority of American states that continues to maintain alcoholic beverage control (i.e. a government monopoly on alcohol sales), and municipal governments can ban the sale of alcohol on Sundays if they so choose—this is a truly interesting whiskey. Not an "everyday" dram, but as a curiosity whiskey, it is compelling.
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Sigh. After checking Chuck Cowdery's blog, I feel compelled to clarify that High West is NOT a distillery at all (though they have a license), but simply a bottler masquerading as one. In Cowdery's words, they are a "Potemkin Craft Distillery": chuckcowdery.blogspot.com/2010/02/…
This doesn't diminish the fine whisky in their bottles, but it does lower their credibility in my eyes somewhat.