Tasting notes

nose

cinnamon, clove and old cedar over butterscotch and dark sugar, with candied ginger, nutmeg, licorice and a twist of orange peel

palate

vanilla and butterscotch up front, then cracked black pepper, oak tannin and orange marmalade, with sassafras and a cool flicker of peppermint

finish

long; pepper and cinnamon linger, softening into clove, marshmallow and orange peel before a dry black-tea edge

Mash bill

100% rye. The whiskey is ten-year-old Canadian straight rye made with no corn or barley, and WhistlePig has published neither the distillery nor the rye variety. WhistlePig presents it as its ten-year rye, bottled here at 110 proof instead of the standard 100.

Why it's craft

This is WhistlePig's ten-year rye at a higher strength than the standard bottling, released for the holidays in a one-liter decanter shaped like a pig and dressed in gold. The whiskey was distilled in Canada and bought in: WhistlePig built its name from 2010 on ten-year Canadian rye, which it hand bottles on its farm in Shoreham, Vermont. The farm, bought in 2007, has distilled its own rye on pot stills since 2015, but this bottle is not that whiskey.