Making the experience of super-luxury spirits crazily affordable and accessible!
Read more about the Spirits project.
- Suggested retail price: $189
- Thursday, July 21 (for as long as it lasts), we're pouring one ounce for $6
Raj Bhakta purchased a 500-acre dairy farm in the rolling hills of Vermont’s Champlain Valley. Today, the farm, which is being painstakingly restored to grow organic rye grains, is home to Master Distiller Dave Pickerell’s magnum opus: Whistle Pig Rye Whiskey. Dave had served as Chairman of the Kentucky Distillers Association and Master Distiller at Maker’s Mark for 13 years. “This is what I was meant for,” says Pickerell of the whiskey business.
After leaving Maker’s Mark, Pickerell embarked on a journey to find the perfect rye whiskey. “Rye, in its own essence, is just a brilliant grain,” says Pickerell. “I wanted to do rye because it’s America’s historical whiskey.” During the Revolutionary War, English blockades of American ports prevented the colonists from purchasing molasses in order to make rum. As a result, American distillers, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, started making rye whiskey.
“Rye is the brat of whiskey grains. The higher the percent rye you get, the worse it behaves,” says Pickerell. “It gets sticky. It foams. A lot of my colleagues laugh at me for persisting to work with 100% rye because the nuisance level of going from 95% to 100% is unbelievable. Most people stop at 95%. We go ahead and push the envelope and make it 100%.”
The Whistle Pig project has received great awards for many of it's whiskey, including from panels where I have sat as a blind judge. As the distillery is 10 years old and I am here touting this 15 year old product, one can surmise that Whistle Pig has purchased some of their older whisky and completed the aging, blending and bottling on-site in Vermont, as they build up their stocks for an entirely estate-bottled whisky. The whisky at hand has been aged on the property in Vermont Oak Barrels from Whistle Pig farm and blended masterfully. The 10 year has been delighting us for a few years now and the 15 is a step up from that.
We will open one bottle at precisely 6:30 PM. When it's gone, it's gone. I hope to see you there.
Upcoming in The Spirits Project
- July 28: A Tasting of Rare Pineau de Charentes in honor of Mark's birthday