About 18 months ago, I received an email from Herman Mihalich, the owner of Dad’s Hat Distillery. I met Herman a few years ago at a whiskey dinner in Washington D.C. I had been invited to the dinner by Bill Thomas and I had the pleasure of sitting next to Herman at the dinner and I, to Bill’s horror, started preaching to Herman about the benefits of low barrel entry proof. In my defense, Herman seemed interested in what I was saying. Herman reads my blog and 18 months ago, he decided to make a rye whiskey using some of my ideas.
He started by using a heritage grain, Rosen Rye. He then used a lower distillation proof of 125. He then put the whiskey in the barrel at 103 proof. This is all credited to the influence of my blogs and the conversation that I had with him at that dinner. The whiskey is about 18 months old now and Herman was kind enough to send me a sample to taste. Here is my opinion of the whiskey, at 18 months old.
It is still young, but it has a lot of rye grass and vanilla with a hint of baking spices on the nose. It is very fruity with peaches and apricots, rye grass and cinnamon and nutmeg in the taste. There is also a honey sweetness in the flavor that I like. The finish is long with lots of cinnamon and nutmeg, a hint of oak wood and lingering peach fruit. It is an excellent whiskey at 18 months old and I can’t wait until it reaches four years old. I suspect that it will be a highly demanded and sought after rye whiskey.
I was excited to see Dad’s Hat make this rye. They are returning to a 19th century method of making whiskey. Lower distillation proof allows a lot of the grain and yeast flavors to come through in the whiskey. I think the Rosen rye has contributed the honey sweetness to the flavor. I tasted it before when I tasted some new make rye from Finger Lakes Distillery that had an orange blossom honey note in it. The lower barrel entry proof allows the vanilla from the oak to come through even at this young age. I am excited about this rye. I hope this is more than a one-off experiment and it becomes a regular brand from Dad’s Hat Distillery.
Photos Courtesy of Rosemary Miller