Michter's Rye

[angelshare]

Rittenhouse is a favorite of mine, and by the way, some years ago I had the Michter's 10 year old rye. The Rittenhouse trumps it no trouble IMO, so you bought well.

I am VERY much a rye novice, and, just by luck, I bought a bottle of Rittenhouse while traveling this weekend. The comments by Chuck and you make me believe I blundered into a good choice. I think the bottle I got was $10.50 in West VA. Can't wait to try it!

[drew_kulsveen]

Actually the rye is from 1983-1984. Chatham Imports already had the labels made up and didn't want to sink more money into new labels.

[dgonano]

Drew,

The Michter's in the heart shaped bottle is 20yr rye?

And the look-a-like bourbon is.....?

[Gillman]

I take it from Mr. Kulsveen's brief comment that the rye in the elegant decanter-style bottle, bearing a label stating 10 year old straight rye, is the same rye as was put in bottle when was first sold some 8-10 years ago. I guess what I don't know is whether, (i) the whiskey has continued to age in oak and been bottled periodically since then (like the ORVW 13 year old rye save that it is now tanked) or, (ii) is from the same stock of bottles filled 8-10 years ago in which case of course the whiskey is not some 20 years old but probably somewhat more than half that. When I bought it about 5 or 6 years ago, I thought it was okay but not in the very fine class. If it has been bottled lately and therefore continued to age in wood until this further bottling, the taste might be different than a few years ago, and hopefully better, which may explain the current price being asked.

Gary

[chasking]

Has anyone had any experience with the other Michter's Rye, i.e., the one without an age statement in the round bottle? I just picked up a bottle last night. I have some of the ten-year-old at home and soon I intend to side-by-side them; I'll post my impressions.

[chasking]

Never mind; I just found this thread.

[Gillman]

This sounds to me like a rye which is perfect for the Manhattan Cocktail. Normally I like a 4:1 ratio of whiskey to vermouth; the colour and taste notes for this rye suggest a maximum 3:1 is ideal if not 2:1. It appears historically (the same applies for a martini) the liquor and vermouth were mixed 50/50. Sweetness may have been more appreciated in, say, 1900 than now, but on the other hand, most rye used for the drink then would have been dry and youngish in taste thereby mandating a goodly amount of vermouth to soften the taste.

Gary

[Gillman]

Recently I picked up the regular Michter's rye, which would seem about 4-5 years old. This really impressed with its softness, sweetness and strong but pure rye flavor. It manages to be assertive yet clean in taste and does not taste "funky" as some rye can do, a hard balance to get for a young-to-medium age rye. I can't think of a more American drink, the only analogies are, say, a piney ale brewed with a heavy addition of North West hops or a big California chardonnay all sweet oak and butter and tang. Just because rye is so, well, enthusiastic/energetic a grain, it can get out of balance. The Michter's straight rye (at least the one in my bottle since it is single barrel) gets it exactly right, surely great straight rye was like this before Prohibition. I have not tried as yet the 10 year old version, I heard it is different from the 10 year old released about 10 years ago (which I didn't much like) albeit sold in the same handsome decanter bottle, so that is for another day. The regular Michter's rye is about $30, not cheap when you consider other good ryes can be bought for half that (e.g. Rittenhouse) but it is worth the extra money. I wonder if BT's new rye will be as good. I also wonder who made the rye in Michter's, it does not taste like a Heaven Hill rye. Nor is it Overholt's, clearly. I think it may be either a very good single barrel of Jim Beam rye (the yellow colors are similar) or possibly the elusive Fleishmann's rye from Barton. Fleischmann's rye is a cat and dog label the many excellent whiskey hunters on this list have not (to my knowledge) found! Maybe there isn't any because the last batch went into this Michter's product? In any case it is really good, a revelation as is an early (pre-batch 90) Woodford Reserve I picked up on the same trip in Buffalo, NY. The unity of the all-Louisville honey barrel Forester in those early batches impresses. I like the best of the batches of Woodford that started with no. 90 (90 itself, 110, also 125) but some of the batches, e.g. no. 164 I now am sampling, seem less well-balanced and with a slight metallic or oily note. I wonder if some of the Versailles pot still may be a little hard to handle for the minglers; at 6 years of age or so, even for U.S. whiskey which ages faster than Scots whisky, 6 years is rather young... All Woodford Reserve is good and some very good but it is interesting to go back to an early batch and see what the all-Louisville whiskey was like, which is Forester at its best (not Birthday Bourbon, which I like but is different to me than classic Old Forester). The Forester spoken of recently on the board as having a classic taste 10 years ago and more can be found in the pre-batch 90 Woodford's. True, some of that was aged at Versailles but that alone does not remove for me its status as classic Old Forester whiskey.

Gary

[doc_mcCabe]

I drank this the other night at Delilah's and enjoyed it, though it wasn't the mystical concoction Van Winkle Rye is. I found it less dimensional and a little lighter, not quite as deep and flavorful, maybe more honied while at the same time being less tart. But don't get me wrong, it was still very nice.