Evaluation: Kentucky Peerless Excessive Rye Bourbon

Kentucky Peerless has launched its share of specialty finishes and single barrels through the years, however the Louisville-based distillery hasn’t added a brand new recipe to the portfolio since its first small batch bourbon debuted in the summertime of 2019. Kentucky Peerless Excessive Rye Bourbon is, because the identify implies, a better rye model of their customary straight bourbon. How a lot larger, you ask? Properly, Peerless has by no means disclosed their precise recipes, however it reportedly incorporates greater than twice as a lot rye as the unique grainbill. Aside from that, this bourbon has been made in the identical method as each different Peerless whiskey, distilled in-house utilizing their distinctive candy mash approach and bottled at barrel proof with out chill-filtration. Let’s give it a go, lets?

The aroma is extra expressive than the usual bourbon with an preliminary fruity bouquet of black cherry and darkish raisin. Thick notes of overcooked caramel and well-baked brownies add a toasty depth that builds as issues open. Ultimately, the fruit blossoms into excessive tones of recent orange slice and cocktail cherry with that darkish caramel and chocolaty barrel char dimension binding all of it collectively. The palate is, at first strategy, peppery and dry with seasoned oak, baking chocolate, and new leather-based; a departure from the syrupy, apple pie profile of the usual providing. A layer of refined toffee sweetness and orange peel undergirds the expertise with vigorous high notes of spicy clove and cinnamon sugar, all steeped in robust black tea. The end is a protracted, warming crescendo of spice and fruit with lingering notes of Demerara syrup and birch beer. A really totally different bourbon from its different Peerless sibling, and a memorable one at that. Out there, for now, solely on the reward store in downtown Louisville and transport to pick out states (together with Alaska!).

110.5 proof.

A- / $135 / kentuckypeerless.com

Kentucky Peerless Excessive Rye Bourbon

$135

About Publish Creator

Drew Beard

Drew Beard is Assistant Editor and Social Media Supervisor for Drinkhacker. He has studied and written about beer, whisk(e)y, and different spirits since he first began consuming them, incomes a number of booze-related advantage badges alongside the way in which, together with Licensed Specialist in Spirits and Government Bourbon Steward. A recovering Federal authorities worker, he’s pleased to have lastly discovered a profession the place it’s acceptable to drink on the job.