By Richard Thomas
Score: A-
Wigle Kilted Cask Rye Whiskey
(Credit score: Richard Thomas)
Smoking grain has been a extensively embraced follow in American craft whiskey for greater than a decade now. Darek Bell, co-founder of Nashville’s Corsair Artisan Distillery, wrote a complete guide on the topic. Within the Southwest, smoking with mesquite has turn into a regional signature. Some distillers have taken to importing peated malt from Scotland, going straight to the unique and most well-known supply for that specific taste ingredient.
Nevertheless, smoking grains isn’t the one option to get a smoky taste into the whiskey. One other technique is to age whiskey in casks that had been, of their earlier flip, used to age whiskeys made with these smoked grains. That’s the route Pittsburgh’s Wigle Distillery selected.
Wigle’s American Rye Kilted Cask begins conventionally sufficient, mashed of their Allegheny type and aged in new oak for 3 years. Then they switch it for an almost two-year, prolonged end within the namesake casks utilized in making Laphroaig Quarter Cask. On the finish of this course of, the whiskey is bottled at 92 proof.
The Whiskey
A pour of this attention-grabbing mixture of flavors of Pennsylvania Rye and Islay malt takes on a burnt orange, center amber look within the glass. The nostril got here to me as toasted darkish rye bread smeared with molasses, and the smoky Laphroaig affect was absent there.
The Islay half surfaced on the palate, and a present of creosote runs proper across the taste. It’s like a core of caramel apple and peppery rye spice is wrapped up in a sheet of smoky essence, melding in a wonderfully balanced trend.
Some persons are undoubtedly turned off by smoky Scotch. Certainly, throughout my time in Europe I discovered it troublesome to steer many a future bourbon drinker to provide American Whiskeys a strive exactly as a result of their introduction had been to a smoky Scotch, which turned them off. These people gained’t like this explicit American Rye. Nevertheless, for these of us (sure, together with myself) who admire a well-made dose of smoke in a dram, the Wigle Kilted Cask is superb.
The Value
This merchandise goes for $85 a bottle.
