Tasting notes

nose

freshly cut grain and toasted cinnamon, with garden herbs, weathered barn wood, damp earth and a faint thread of dark chocolate

palate

cinnamon-baked apple, rye grain and powdered vanilla, then nougat, dark chocolate and dried red fruit with a note of apple-raisin bread

finish

medium-long; rye spice and green peppercorn lead, with baking spice and a light, chewy oak drying the close

Mash bill

80% rye, 20% malted barley. The rye is grown in New York, and the whiskey carries the Empire Rye designation, which requires at least 75% New York-grown rye. There is no corn or wheat in the recipe, so the rye sets the character with only malted barley beside it, and the distillery bottles it at full bond strength to keep the grain's spice to the fore.

Why it's craft

This is the McKenzie rye recipe left on its own: the same 80/20 rye and malted barley mash as the sherry-finished Straight Rye, given at least six years in new charred oak and bottled in bond with no finishing cask. It qualifies as Empire Rye, a standard for New York rye built on the state's own grain. Brian McKenzie founded Finger Lakes Distilling on Seneca Lake in Burdett in 2007, and it still mashes, ferments and distills its whiskey there from grain bought from New York farms.