Tasting notes

nose

Soft vanilla and pine needles over brown sugar and caramel corn, with spearmint, clove and a jammy summer fruit note behind, plus a little honey and white pepper

palate

Medium-bodied and gently sweet, with spearmint and maple first, then honey, light leather and oak, a dab of tropical fruit and a mild, dry pepper that never turns hot

finish

Medium in length and restrained in spice; pepper and mint linger with a perfumed grapefruit note before an oaky bitterness dries it out

Mash bill

95% rye; the remaining grain is not published. A rye share that high leaves little room for corn or barley, so the rye carries the flavor. Yellow Rose does not distill this whiskey; it selects and blends rye whiskeys made elsewhere and does not name the distiller.

Why it's craft

This rye is not distilled by Yellow Rose: the Houston house buys rye whiskeys, picks and blends the batches itself, and bottles them with each batch and bottle numbered by hand on the label. The blend is built to show sweetness and mint over raw pepper. Alongside this line, Houston's first legal whiskey distillery pot-distills its Outlaw bourbon from Texas corn.