Old Potrero Straight Rye Whiskey
I bought my first bottle of Old Potrero Rye about 10 years ago and it was meh. The bottle remained on my shelf for many years and I finally finished it a while back to clear some space. To be fair, I believe that bottle was young, perhaps a 2 year old? Can’t be certain. This is a long-winded way of saying that I wasn’t looking to give Old Potrero another shot but picked one up last month at @gordonswine in the Greater Boston area after speaking with one of the owners, @thewhiskyguys. This bottle's one of the store’s barrel picks. I generally don’t do store picks except for @gordonswine because they pick great barrels and I have yet to be disappointed. That said, I approached this bottle with some trepidation.
This bottle's labeled as a Straight Rye Whiskey as well as a Single Malt Whiskey as they use 100% rye malt in the mash bill. Being a single malt has a significant impact on the flavor profile when you compare it to a lot of other rye whiskeys in the market. Rye Whiskey itself only needs to have ≥51% rye in the mash bill so when you see “Rye Whiskey” on a label at the store, there's a lot of variance label-to-label from a flavor profile perspective. You tend to see a lot of the KY & TN ryes with 51% - 75% (roughly) of rye in the mash bills and you see a LOT of labels with 95% rye in the mashbill (5% malted barley) as a lot of them source their rye whiskey from MGP in Indiana. But all of these are typically rye grain, not malted rye.
While labeled as aged for 4 years and 6 months, apparently this rye was actually aged for nearly 7 years.
ABV: 64.17%
How it smells…Funky quick whiffs of cinnamon and copper. After water, you get some oak and some broader spices including turmeric.
How it tastes…Spicy cinnamon, thicker mouthfeel than a grain rye and a warm drying finish with some bitterness and pepper. After water, it is surprisingly sweeter and spicier. Warm maltiness with slight coffee taste replacing bitterness on the finish, but still strong and pepperry.
Price...I picked up this bottle for $90.
Rating...🥃🥃🥃🥃
Final thoughts…I really like this bottle and will likely get a backup before they are gone. It's hard to compare from a value perspective as I don't know of any other ryes quite like this, but I'll sip this one neat like my scotch and there aren't many ryes not called Thomas H. Handy that I'll do that to.
