Cask Strength / Barrel Proof Archives

Castle & Key Single Barrel Restoration Rye – Binny’s Barrel #234

Posted on August 30, 2023August 30, 2023 by Nick

Castle & Key’s distillery starts it life in 1887 when Colonel Edmund Haynes Taylor, Jr built the structure inspired by European architecture. The result featured a Castle, a classical Springhouse, and a Sunken Garden, and contributed to an age of bourbon hospitality. Sadly, it wouldn’t last, and the distillery was shuttered in 1920 with the passing of prohibition. Purchased in 2014, the team at Castle & Key began work to create a functioning distillery. Nearly 100 years later (2018) the first spirits became available for purchase, with aged spirits following in 2021/2022. Among these are single barrel selections, such as Castle & Key Single Barrel Restoration Rye – Binny’s Barrel #234. So has their effort paid off?

Castle & Key Single Barrel Restoration Rye – Binny’s Barrel #234

Mash Bill: 17% Yellow Corn / 63% Rye / 20% Malted Barley
Barrel No.: 234
Bottle No.: 32
Age: 4 Years
Released: 2022
Proof: 115.9 (A.B.V. 57.9%)

Sight: Russet Muscat to Tawny

Smell: Hello, would you like ALL OF THE PEANUTS. The noses explodes with peanuts, peanut brittle, peanut butter, and an armada of other peanut notes. A yeasty dough and mild milk chocolate flavor. The nuttiness covers a lot of the herbal notes, and instead lets some brown sugar and baking spice out.

Sip: It’s viscous, rich, and creamy on the palate. There’s a creamed honey and peanut that comes forward. The vanilla and pastry notes pick up a significant amount of clove and herbs. There’s a deep amount of caramelized brown sugar and light notes of fruit that comes through. There’s some apple and peach notes that get through too, but it’s heavily peanut and sugar orientated.

Savor: The finish carries through dessert like peanut notes mixed with peaches and light mint. The warm baking spices and a touch of tea like astringency gets into the mix. Welcoming oaky notes and light toasted elements finish the long, lingering, peanut finish.

Castle & Key Single Barrel Restoration Rye – Binny’s Barrel #234 is delightfully dessert like without losing the underpinned rye. It has a moderate amount of complexity and layered sugary notes. The yeastiness is pleasant and balanced, working as a good foil to neutralize some of the more predominate rye elements. Overall, this is a fun rye, and one that I think offers a lot at this price point.

In Cocktails

In a Manhattan Castle & Key Single Barrel Restoration Rye is smooth, hiding between the sweetness of the red plum in the vermouth. The herbal flavors emphasize slightly here, but there’s not a stand out element beyond the caramel and vanilla. The black tea notes creep up as it warms up. Overall, it doesn’t feel like a 120 proof rye Manhattan, and this disappearing act is a little disappointing.

Compared to another Castle & Key Single Barrel Restoration Rye

Another single barrel pick reveals a large gulf. The color shows a bit less, going toward russet muscat. The nose shows interesting aromas of honey and cinnamon with wine like fermented fruits. The herbal touches of the rye creep in adding a savory juniper kind of backdrop, but it lets a honeyed baklava come out. There’s a slight pastry and vanilla nose complexity. The palate explodes with raspberry, peaches, and mint. It’s moderate bodied, and pulls in honeyed tea notes. The flavor is almost similar to a deeply complex, aged dessert wine made with noble rot. There’s a hint of coffee and waffle cone here too. The sweetness here belies a funny sort of sweet white fruit character. The finish is complexly herbal and mixed with dried fruits. The finish brings forward some lingering dried red fruit notes.

Overall, it’s another stunner, even if it’s completely different. It gives me confidence in picking another barrel this rye.

In Review – Castle & Key Single Barrel Restoration Rye – Binny’s Barrel #234

Castle & Key Single Barrel Restoration Rye is really good on it’s own. Especially for the price point, and the step up over the standard shelfer (Castle & Key Restoration Rye). The premium bottle and cork add a richness to the experience, but the complex flavor of the rye inside adds up for a lot of fun. Having two bottles that both positively show this is a confidence booster for picking up another one of these, especially around $60.

Wild Turkey Rare Breed Rye

Posted on November 23, 2022November 21, 2022 by Nick

If you didn’t know, Wild Turkey also makes a rye. Similar to their bourbon, their rye comes in 86 proof and 101 proof offerings, as well as the barrel proof, Wild Turkey Rare Breed Rye. This product is bottled at the slightly lower 112.2 proof, and is distilled by Wild Turkey (unlike some other producers who use MGP sourced ryes). Given how good the bourbon is, should you also look at enjoying the rye?

Wild Turkey Rare Breed Rye

Proof: 112.2
Age: No Age Statement (Reportedly a blend 4, 6, and 8 year old Kentucky straight ryes)
Filtration: Non-Chill Filtered

Sight: Burnished

Smell: The nose really shows a maturity here that’s rounded off some of the more obvious grain and cereal notes that can appear in younger rye. Pops of chocolate, coffee, oak, spice, and a bit of preserved cherry come out. More of the mint and herb rye notes being to emerge toward the edges, but the nose gives a dessert like caramel brown sugar character with a lot of fruitiness and chestnut.

Sip: The sip starts out a touch sweet and then opens up with preserved dark fruits, like cherries, plums, and prune. The rye spice picks up here bringing in brown sugar and massive chestnuts before pepper, spice, cigar box, tobacco, oak, and buckwheat. There’s a honey and resin flavor that sort of flits around and gives a little bit of a floral – herbal complexity. The body is quite big and smooth to start, but gets warm as it goes

Savor: The brown sugar and herbal notes carry over with touches of preserved dark fruit and plenty of rye spice. There’s a decent amount of tannin.

Wild Turkey Rare Breed Rye is complex and refined in all the right ways. The balance of spice, fruit, oak, and delicate floral / herbal notes is well defined, and loaded with powerful flavors. The more important thing is it flows from floral to spicy to nutty to fruity to oaky. There’s no particular are it falls short in. It works neat and shows the restraint of maturity.

In Cocktails

In a Manhattan it delivers on the sweetness of the dark preserved fruits with notes like blackberries and prune. These flavors are the amazingly powerful and defined. The rye spice joins with some chestnut notes and pulls out amazing flavors of buckwheat honey and complex tobacco notes. The oak builds on the finish, but almost becomes cabernet or port like. This flavor profile is distinct compared to what most individuals expect of a manhattan. Overall, the flavor profile that Wild Turkey Rare Breed Rye brings is a bit unusual, but nothing short of spectacular.

In Review – Wild Turkey Rare Breed Rye

At $45 – $60 Wild Turkey Rare Breed Rye represents a fantastic combination of flavors that work both straight and in cocktails. The cost is high, but at the lower end this is a serious contender to be one of the best possible values you can buy. The flavors are balanced across a variety of different elements, ranging from delicate floral and fruit to robust oak and spice. This is highly recommended as a bottle to add as your primary rye, or to splurge on if you don’t have the means to regularly stock it.