Van Winkle Family Reserve 13 rye

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Originally Posted by Special Reserve

TB,

I've had similar experiences. Recently I found a WLW 117.9 that was not in the store on many earlier visits. Also in the recent past, I found old (cheesy gold medallion style) RHF and of all things a gold veined OWA that the store owner insisted just came in "this week" and had absolutely no dust on the bottle.

Will

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Hmm...time to re-visit all those stores I checked out last year. Who knows what may (re)appear?

Any tasting notes on these new bottles would be mighty welcome.

After reading this thread, I checked the two bottles of in my cabinet for both the hand written date and the printed julian date. The first bottle, purchased fall of 09 is marked NoA3875 while the printed date is K2590914:26. I'd interpret that to say it was bottled on the 259th day of 09 at 2:26pm which jives with the time of purchase. The second bottle is marked No.B4246 and the julian date is N2771011:23 which seems to indicate it was bottled on the 277th day of '10 which also jives with the timeframe in which I found the bottle.

Also, the UPC of the first bottle is applied OVER the printed date on the bottle. I had to scrape it off to read the julian date.

The bottle I got the other day is also a new B bottle. When I first popped it I got lots of caramel corn with oak and lots of rye spiciness on the tail - the rye spiciness that I've long searched for.

Right now I'm picking up lots of caramel corn and vanilla on the nose. There's a good amount of citrus on the nose that really comes out on the tongue as well. Oddly this isn't something I particularly noticed on my last few go arounds.

I love the dryness of these bottles. The one I have open now is a B and it's got a great spicy dryness that is outstanding.

They do rye right.

I thought the latest bottling wasn't quite as good as the Earlier "I" and "A" versions. I'll have to try them again.

I am having trouble finding any VWFRR in Atlanta. I would love to find a couple of current bottles so I could finish the "I" bottle that I have had opened for quite a while and compare it to the current offering. This is one of my two favorite whiskies of all time (Saz 18 being the other one). I might have to resort to mail-order!

I don't see it at my regular haunts here in Minneapolis, either.

I have a bottle from the recent "b"release...and it is the only bottle in my cabinet that I ration.

Most of the time i get punched in the face with caramel followed by a back hand of dark cherry. Other times the cherry comes first. This is followed by vanilla and spice.

The taste is again caramel and dark fruit, with soft rye and hints of milk chocolate. The finish is long.

This isn't whiskey. This is the stuff that I imagined pirates drinking when I was a child.