If you have experience with any of the products Barrell Craft Spirits is rolling out, you’re aware that they are very keen on blending.  I can’t even imagine the spice rack of whiskeys these folks must have on-hand to come up with these blends, but I suppose I don’t have to!  Rye Batch 003 is a blend of four rye whiskeys that were selected to compliment each other and create a well-rounded product.

Info on Barrell Rye Batch 003:

• A blend of straight Rye Whiskeys

• Distilled and aged in Indiana, Tennessee, Poland, and Canada

• Selection of 4 to 14-year-old barrels

• Crafted and bottled in Kentucky

• 116.7 proof cask strength bottling

Barrell Rye Batch 003 (photo: Barrell Craft Spirits)

As always, before I share my tasting note and thoughts on this particular whiskey, I like to share with you what the brand has to say about it.  The following is from the Barrell Craft Spirits website:

Rye Batch 003 is a blend of rye whiskeys from Indiana, Poland, Tennessee and Canada, all with distinct personalities and varying ages. We started with Tennessee Rye barrels with caramel and dried fruit notes and added the Polish Rye for its nuttiness and mouthfeel. We then carefully layered in 13-year Canadian Rye to bring out earthy notes of grass, spearmint and apple. The Indiana Rye was the finishing touch to highlight the candied fruit and spiciness you expect from a rye.

barrellbourbon.com

Time to have a pour and jot down some notes.  Here we go!

All in all I’m happy with Barrell Rye Batch 003.  The art that Barrell showcases with their blending certainly can be something to behold.  I’m not blown away by the rye itself, but I have to admit they achieved something nice here.  While I want to throw this into a Manhattan and see how rockstar it would be, I’ve killed the bottle and don’t have a chance to do any mixing…which I guess is something of an answer as to how fun this one is to sip.  Be sure to scroll back and up and check out the episode of Weekly Whiskey with Will Schragis from Barrell, it was really fun and he shares so much great information.  Until next time, cheers!

TheBourbonFinder thanks Barrell Craft Spirits for graciously providing a sample of their product. Being able to try new things in the whiskey space, without strings attached, is an opportunity we greatly appreciate. Per our review ethos, we provide objective reviews and commentary on media samples of spirits and products; remember, friends, these are the good old days of whiskey!

Our grading system: As mentioned in our About Us page, we’re excited to share bourbon with our friends, family, and readers. There are enough critics, cynics, and curmudgeons in the whiskey world as it is, so our goal is to foster the bourbon community in a positive way by bringing fun and entertaining content whenever possible–as such–we decided that applying precise scores to whiskey was simply too serious for us (and didn’t accurately showcase variability in taste from day to day). We use a simple grade school system to apply a grade to the whiskeys we review because we feel it is indicative of the whiskey’s grade for us on that particular day. A grade of a “B” today may very well be a “B+” or even a “B-” on another day, so rather than focusing on a precise score today that may not stand the test of time, we are just sharing our overall grade of that pour for that one tasting. Pour a bit and enjoy, friends, these are the good old days of whiskey!