Pinhook Rye Vertical Single Barrel 7-Year - Selected by Breaking Bourbon & Seelbach's

Regular price $79.99 Sale

Mash Bill: 95/5 Rye/Malted Barley

Proof: 104.3 Proof

Age: 7-Years

Bottles: 206

Tasting Notes:

Nose: Punchy rye spice | Honeycomb | Light fennel | Raisin | Toasted marshmallow

Palate: Rye spice | Graham cracker | Pear | Light caramel | Touch of charred oak | Hint of dill | Rich

Finish: Allspice | Honey | Caramel | Long with lingering rye spice

Anyone that’s into whiskey knows, as it ages in a barrel, it changes over time. Outside the relatively few who are part of the process of making it, not many whiskey drinkers get to taste this ongoing metamorphosis. Most notably, Orphan Barrel attempted to capture this with Rhetoric, a bourbon that was continually aged and released each year that attempted to showcase how a whiskey changes over time. The main issue with this endeavor was the inaugural release was already a 20 year old bourbon. At that point the majority of the whiskey’s most drastic changes had already taken place. Rhetoric was already heavily oaked at 20 years and at 25 years old (the final release in the series), didn’t leave it very much room to change.

We had already done a Pinhook Rye pick at Castle & Key Distillery, SBC #11 “King of the Castle”, so when the idea came up to showcase how rye changes over time in a barrel with a yearly release, we jumped at it. Rye can go through some drastic changes as it ages. With the majority of rye whiskeys on the market around the 3-5 year old range, being able to juxtapose our first release at 4 years old to the following year, and eventually to a final 12 year old whiskey should be quite shocking.

This is the fourth edition in our Pinhook Vertical Rye series, which will run for five additional years culminating with a 12 year old release. Now at 7 years old, this edition is beginning to show the influence of more time in the barrel. We chose the particular barrel for its balance of rye spice and sweeter flavors of predominantly caramel and honey, but also for its slight charred oak and graham cracker notes. At just over 104 proof it’s a really nice sipping rye, that’s rich and full-flavored but not hot or overly spicy.

In typical fashion, we went all out with our Single Barrel Club sticker for this special set of releases. With each typical Pinhook release featuring a different horse, we ran with that idea and created an 8 part sticker series that when combined, creates a beautiful panoramic picture of galloping horses. For the final sticker (Year 9), we plan to do a little something special to cap off this epic vertical series. We’re really excited about this latest single barrel release and we hope you will be too.