Whistle Pig Rye

I have been have great fun exploring Bourbon as of late. Our restaurant has been doing a series of whiskey dinners, bringing in distillers to present. My wife and I attended this dinner last week with two other couples. The chef did an amazing job of pairing the rye whiskeys which I think is not easy. I had remotely heard of Whistle Pig Distillery located in Vermont. They make only small batch rye and use a variety of finishing barrels for their offerings. I was quite pleased with these having never had much experience with rye other than in an old fashion. Everything from their 6-year old on up to the reserve 15 and then the “The Boss Hog”. We tasted The Boss Hog VI which was finished in Japanese umeshu barrels. Beautiful balance and finish. So my friend stopped by the house today and gifted me a bottle of The Boss Hog VI. I was quite surprised to find out that this bottle retails for $500 - $600!!! I thought wines were crazy.

I love Whistle Pig. The 10 is my go to rye for cocktails.

I love the 10 year but my enthusiasm declines as the age statement increases. I do have a bottle of the 12 year aged in sauternes barrels. A delicious one off.

Whistlepig is the antithesis of a artisanal grower producer. They buy their rye from Canada and market it. Now their douchebag founder is polluting armagnac with ex-Islay casks… ugh.

Did not know any back story on WP or the founder. The rep did say that they source rye from Canada but that more and more of the offerings are on premise distillation. I googled WP and it looks like the founder got run off. Not sure how that Armagnac project is every going to take off. They can hardly sell the real thing in the states.

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The whiskey is great, but I think they have been too aggressive with pricing. I used to sell it and when the 10yr was $60-70 I thought it was fair. Not at $85-90 which is what the 12yr used to cost. The last two offerings of Boss Hog have sat on the shelves because people won’t pull the trigger at $500 when it was once $300. I still know a bunch of people on the sales team, they’re all solid. Raj is long gone. He was quite a character.

Also, they do a good job on their private barrel program, those are the bottles you should look for. Any of the cask strength 10yr or custom pick barrel finish 12yr offerings.

Solid ryes but not worth the aggressive price point as mentioned above. If you land some barrel picks that are above the age stated sticker then those are easy purchases. I think last year most retailers had 12-13 year rye barrel picks age stated as 10 year (price reflected the 10 year). Those were pretty tasty and no-brainers in purchasing.