By Richard Thomas
Score: B
Clean Ambler Founder’s Cask Power Rye
(Credit score: Richard Thomas)
Like so many different well-established small whiskey firms, West Virginia’s Clean Ambler is within the midst of transitioning from being a bottler of sourced whiskeys to a totally unbiased distillery. Their present line-up displays this, with a foot in all three sorts of merchandise such an organization may produce. Outdated Scout is their totally sourced model, reflecting the corporate’s previous, whereas Contradiction is a mix of in-house and sourced whiskey. Founder’s Cask Power is totally in-house, as implied by the title.
Clean Ambler made their in-house rye in a really not-Kentucky fashion and extra within the vein of neighboring Pennsylvania, using a mash invoice of 88% rye and 12% malted barley, with no corn in any respect. In addition they used what they name “infusion cooking,” which is to cook dinner their mash slower and at a decrease temperature than is the business norm. The maturation within the center Appalachian mountains is simply as a lot part of the method, maybe extra, than mashing and cooking. It’s milder, than whiskeys made in surrounding, lowland areas, but additionally not as dry a local weather because the whiskeys from the western Rocky Mountain areas. The bottle lined right here is from 2021’s Batch 2, and is a 5 yr outdated, 61.6% ABV whiskey.
The Whiskey
A pour of the pure Clean Ambler rye has that orange, coppered bent of amber that so many rye whiskeys do. The nostril was spicy in a herbaceous, evergreen method, with a dollop of black treacle. The flavour evolves from there, bringing peppermint, clove and caramel. The end is brief, however leans exhausting on the candied facet of the whiskey.
This can be a easy rye, so anybody on the lookout for one thing refined ought to look elsewhere… however why anybody would go to a 5 yr outdated, cask energy rye with a daring mash invoice like this one for sophistication is past me. As an alternative, it’s virtues are in its strong, easy taste. I believe it’s going to show excellent for summertime ingesting on the rocks, and seeing how I wrote this in late summer time, have set that bottle within the image apart for subsequent yr. I’m trying ahead to bringing it again out come July 2023.
The Worth
Formally, this merchandise goes for $65 a bottle.
