Tasting notes

nose

Earthy at first, then raw brown sugar, honey, cinnamon and a hint of chocolate, with ripe peach and a tropical edge

palate

Thick and oily; caramel and honey meet cantaloupe, dried mango and fennel seed, with espresso, almond and burnt orange peel under a steadily building pink-pepper spice

finish

Medium to long; pepper and licorice hold on with coffee grounds, blackberry, plum and cocoa powder, ending on a mineral note

Mash bill

75% rye, 13% corn, 12% malted barley. The rye is Horton, an heirloom variety once grown in New York that had not been farmed commercially for more than a century; the distillery revived it from ten seeds in 2010 with Finger Lakes farmer Rick Pedersen and researchers at Cornell, and by 2023 it covered 250 acres. Horton grows smaller grains and lower yields than modern rye, which is why farmers gave it up, but the distillery wanted it for flavor beyond rye's usual generic spice. At 75% rye the recipe sits between the legal 51% minimum and the all-rye mashes some distillers use.

Why it's craft

New York Distilling Company brought back Horton rye, a grain nobody had grown commercially in the state for over a hundred years, and every Jaywalk bottle contains it. This bonded bottling is whiskey from one growing season, blended from a handful of nine-year-old casks. Allen Katz and Tom Potter founded the distillery in Brooklyn in 2011, moved production from Williamsburg to Bushwick in 2024, and sold the company to the Scotch producer Loch Lomond Group in 2025.