Wilderness Trail Single Barrel Rye Whiskey - Barrel Proof
Our next review is Wilderness Trail Single Barrel Kentucky Straight Settlers Select Rye Barrel Proof Whiskey. Wilderness Trail is a “newer” distillery located in Danville, KY. I say “newer” because it has been around for 10 years, launching in 2012, however, instead of rushing out to market they seemed to have focused on building up aged stock. I live in the Northeast of the U.S. and we didn’t get Wilderness Trail distributed up here until mid-late 2021. As I alluded to in my Instagram post, this is a bit of an extended review because there’s so much to discuss about Wilderness Trail in general and this Rye specifically.
There are a few reasons why I am digging Wilderness Trail. Foremost, they make some good shit. But in addition to tasty products, their labels are FULL of great information for the whiskey nerds who want to know exactly what they are getting. Beyond the label, their website has a plethora of information about how they distill and how and where they source raw materials from. There’s a word for this….TRANSPARENCY. I love when the new guys are fully transparent with their processes. Let’s be honest, if you are paying a tad of a premium for a “craft” product, you want to know the truth behind the craft! Wilderness Trail is doing a superb job at being transparent.
The bottle label has a lot of great information. My review is on bottle #49 of 250 from Barrel No. 16B21U. According to the label, this rye was made using a sweet mash process, which basically just means that they don’t use backset in the distilling. To expound further would take some time, but feel free to read this primer if you want to learn more about Sour Mash vs. Sweet Mash. The mash bill is 56% Rye, 33% Corn, and 11% Malted Barley, distilled in a copper pot still from a single fermented batch. Finally, this Rye was put into the barrel at 100 proof, which is a low proof entry point. At a later time I’ll add some information on the site for those that want to learn more about the different rules, regulations, processes that go into making different whiskeys.
So let’s recap what the label told us: we know that it is on the lower side of the rye spectrum (56%). We know that it was made in a sweet mash process and distilled from a single fermented batch in a copper pot still. Finally, we know this bottle is from a single barrel and was bottled at barrel proof, going from 100 proof in the barrel to 106 proof in the bottle through some sort of sorcery (I kid).
Ok, I’ve done a lot of yapping, now on the review!
ABV: 53%
How it smells…Luden’s Wild Cherry throat drops, stone fruit, vanilla, red grape skin, oak…with a dab of water, a bit more floral and more baking spices perhaps.
How it tastes…starts off with sweet cherry cola turning into more baking spices (cinnamon, all spice) towards the middle. Ending sweeter again with some heat on the tongue…with a dab of water that cherry cola gets mixed with root beer and the end gets sweeter and with less heat/pepper but a whole lot of cinnamon on the finish. I wrote “cinnamon breath” as my final note.
Price..$56
Rating...🥃🥃🥃🥃
Final thoughts…Overall, I’m liking what these folks are putting out. At this point, I have had all four of their releases to my area, a 6 year Straight Bourbon (64% Corn, 24% Wheat, 12% Barley), Single Barrel Bourbon Bottled In Bond (64% Corn, 24% Wheat, 12% Barley), Small Batch Bourbon Bottled in Bond (64% Corn, 24% Rye, 12% Malted Barley), and the Rye. I recommend checking them all out and looking at the website which provides additional information not found on the bottle labels.
I like this Rye a lot, so much so that I recently picked up a store pick version from Gordon’s Wine. I’ll compare this one side by side to the above shortly, but let’s finish talking about this particular bottle first. I think the $56 is a great value for a well aged craft Rye that’s a single barrel, barrel proof…even if it is on the weaker side of barrel proof ryes due to the lower proof entry point. The low rye % in the mash bill also makes it more high-rye bourbon-esque, but there’s a remarkable amount of rye flavors in this bottle for 56% rye. 4x 🥃 seems right.
Here’s our Head-to-Head match up between the above Rye from Barrel No. 16B21U and the Gordon’s Store Pick Rye from Barrel No. 17E29-1 (fuller bottle on the right in the above picture).
First off, there’s a slight difference to the label. While the original bottle I reviewed called it “Barrel Proof” the store pick has labeled it “Family Reserve Cask Strength”. Also, the label on the side of the bottle doesn’t detail the mash bill specifics. They also refer to it as a “bourbon” on the side label, but I think this is just a typo and was missed by the marketing folks at Wilderness Trail. Gordon’s has provided their own side label which gives us some additional information:
Aged 4 years, 5 months.
Barrel is an ISC #4 Char.
Stored in Rickhouse A-N5-F7
Make from Yeast Strain FermPro 1
ABV: 53%
How it smells….there’s not really a discernible difference with the smells between the two bottles, if anything I would say that the store pick has a bit more vanilla.
How it tastes….Starts off with more rye spice and vanilla than the original with a drying middle to the tasting. The end is strongly cinnamon and it finishes warmer with a more peppery linger.
Price..$65
Rating...🥃🥃🥃🥃
Overall….I would say that the store pick is a bit hotter and is more rye-like than the original. You get both those peppery spicy notes as well as the baking spices. Both very enjoyable, but both very very different as well. You will ALWAYS get variability with single barrel releases as the distillery is not blending a bunch of barrels to homogenize the flavor profile so it is always interesting to do single barrel side by side tastings and see those differences in real time. What I don’t know for certain is if the store pick has a slightly different mash bill or if it was made differently than the original bottle. I don’t think it is but since the label was a bit different, I can’t say for certain. But still a 4x 🥃 as I expect to pay a little bit of a premium for a store pick.
Have you had any Wilderness Trail? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.
