Single Cask Nation Catoctin Creek Rye

Single Cask Nation Catoctin Creek Rye

Our friends at The Jewish Whisky Company have been dropping single cask releases left and right (their whiskey club is called "Single Cask Nation" after all!), so when they put out an original American rye whiskey, we figured we'd do a review.  

Catoctin Creek

Catoctin Creek appears to be a legitimate craft distiller.  In other words, they're not bottling factory-produced whiskey and putting a fancy label on it.  (There's nothing wrong with that as long as you're honest about it, which many so called "craft distillers" are not.)  They have built their own distillery in Northern Virginia and have chosen to produce organic spirits, an expensive and risky proposition. But all that being said, it's all about the taste isn't it?  So let's try it!

Catoctin Creek 2-Year Single Barrel Rye

Nose: Luden's Cherry Cough Drops, some tree bark, orange peel, and cinnamon.  Pretty impressive nose, we'd never guess this was a 2-year rye...

Palate: Nice rich mouthfeel, some little pops of sweetness.  A nice spicy rye base with some interesting notes from the whine finish of green grapes and sweet lemon.  We'd say that this was a good palate "for a two year", but you know what? It's just good, period!

Finish: The sweetness from the wine plays off against the hot cask strength rye nicely.  We normally don't care for fancy finished on rye, since they tend to get rubbery and overly sweet.  But this one is a really nice little package.  We'll say that the youth of this barrel shows up in the finish, but it's still impressive and very drinkable.  This one's a winner.


Review

Very nice job from Catoctin Creek & a great pick from Single Cask Nation.  We'd never guess this was such a young rye, and it really holds up to many older whiskies.  We're looking forward to seeing what comes out of this interesting distillery over the years.  We hope they're saving a good bit of product for older releases down the road!