High West's Rendezvous Rye is a crowd favorite in the rye whiskey world. By marrying a higher rye 6 year old MGP whiskey with a more mature 16 year Barton whiskey, High West has created an interesting product with a broad range of flavors. A Midwinter Nights Dram looks to improve on that already great offering by taking Rendezvous Rye and putting it through some additional finishing in both new french oak and port barrels. As a big fan of the standard offering I had high hopes for this release.
The nose is very forward with classic MGP rye spice of dill and mint. The port sweetness is evident even as early as the nose and rounds off the spice with a nice sweetness. On the palate the port flavors comes on stronger but still plays second fiddle to the layers of spicy rye punch. Mint and dill rye spice predominate but are intermingled nicely with sweet wood sugars like caramel and some dry oak. It's an incredibly complex whiskey with a lot of depth and something new in almost every sip.
Thoughts: High West has taken an already great product and made it even better. The range of flavors here from woody to spicy and sweet all come together really well to create a complex and very craveable poor. This is one of my favorite whiskeys of the year and I can only hope that High West makes it a permanent offering because it is a bottle I would always keep stocked.
Rating: A
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