Some of you might remember last month when I posted about a blind tasting I participated in. The TLDR; version is a local group of us banded together to help each other out sourcing whiskey in our very competitive market. In addition to sharing whiskey finds we've also started doing blind tastings about once a month. Last night was our second blind tasting. The category was any rye under $70. Each of us submitted a list of 4-5 ryes to redditor /u/dannyg483 who then picked a submission for each of us to bring. Once we arrived, all our samples were randomized by a third party so in essence everything was totally blind.
My submission for the evening was Wild Turkey 101 rye so going in all I knew was it was there. Here are my notes for the five samples, in the order of which I ranked them.
- Sample D: I guessed that this one was my submission. I thought it was very well balanced but not a very high rye content. I thought the nose was great and the taste was good. My rating for this one was 8.25.
- Sample E: This was the darkest of the bunch and perhaps the most interesting. It had a super minty nose. The mint was a little weird and unique but it was definitely a higher rye so I guessed LDI. Even further I thought it was perhaps Bulleit or Dickel Rye. I rated this one an 8.
- Sample A: This one had a decent nose and decent palate. I guessed this one was lower in rye content and therefore not LDI or Canadian. My rating: 7.25.
- Sample B: This one had a good nose but the taste was very, very sweet. It was far too sweet for what I expect in a rye. I also noted it was lower in rye. My rating: 7.
- Sample C: This one had a weird complexity that I did not like. It thought it was lower in rye and not LDI. It was far too busy and I did not care for it. My rating: 5.5.
- Rittenhouse 100
- Smooth Ambler Old Scout 7 year
- Wild Turkey 101
- Sazerac 6 year
- High West Double Rye
Huzzah! I've always loved Rittenhouse and recently come to love Smooth Ambler. I am pretty stoked about my results as they align with my preconceived thoughts on these whiskeys prior to the tasting. As for the poor showing of Double Rye, I'll just say that while I love HW Rendezvous Rye I really didn't care for the Double Rye when I had it before so again this was spot on for me. I did get guess my submission incorrectly and missed the LDI aspect of the HW DR though. Can't win them all, I suppose.
So how did the group results fare? One of the rules of the tasting was that no one was allowed to reveal their rankings until the very end. This produced a wide variety of results in rankings. Here is how they ranked based on averages from the whole group:
- Smooth Ambler Old Scout 7 year via /u/Imcoolerthanu50
- High West Double Rye via /u/docjones12
- Sazerac 6 year via /u/Helios7
- Wild Turkey 101 via /u/signde
- Rittenhouse 100 via /u/werdx
Smooth Ambler's Old Scout takes the crown and Rittenhouse finishes last. While the SA taking the top spot was no surprise the real shocker here to me is Rittenhouse finishing dead last, even with my vote for it as first. My fifth place HW DR finished second in group results. Very interesting!
Final Thoughts: As I noted after the first one, blind tastings a very tough. It really puts you on the spot to challenge what you think is a good whiskey without any bias or preconceived hype. It's tough to taste this many whiskeys in one night but I will say it was easier this second time around and I think the next one will be even easier in that regard. Having said that, blind tastings are a blast! I highly recommend you find a local group and try this yourself. Also, special thanks to /u/Helios7 for hosting the event and for the incredible scotches he so generously allowed us to sample after the blind tasting was over.
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