A couple of Rittenhouse 100's

Bottled in Bond, now what is that ?

To be labeled Bottled in Bond the following requirements have to be met (from Wikipedia) :

To be labeled as "Bottled-in-Bond" or "Bonded," the spirit must be the product of one distillation season and one distiller at one distillery. It must have been stored (i.e., aged) in a federally bonded warehouse under U.S. government supervision for at least four years and bottled at 100 (U.S.) proof (50% alcohol by volume). The bottled product's label must identify the distillery (by DSP number) where it was distilled and, if different, where it was bottled.

Rittenhouse is the rye brand label of Heaven Hill. They have a range of different Rittenhouses, I've reviewed a 25yo before here.

I got a couple of bottlings. The standard, reddish label and a single barrel bottled by The Whisky Exchange in London, greenish label.

The first thing that hits me is that the back labels states "Distilled by DSP-354". This is actually the Early Times distillery (owned by Brown-Forman). So Heaven Hill must be distilling their Rye at one of their competitors distilleries. Brown-Forman is the owner of Jack Daniels, Woodford Reserve, Old Forrester etc)

Now on to the whiskeys. They are very similar, but not the same

These are sweet fruity ryes, with the typical rye spicyness being well hosted by the sweetness. I get a dominant banana flavour, which for me is typical Rittenhouse. Loads of floor varnish which always hits me in bourbons, the huge new wood impact on the sweet corn I guess. This is a rye, yes, but the mashbill contains a lot of corn, Rittenhouse is reckoned to be close to 51% rye, some barley (10%-ish?) and the rest is corn

The single cask is more fullbodied and rounder and slightly less rough and less woody in its expression. The rye spicyness of the singlebarrel reminds me of classical gin flavours

Finish : More Bananas

Rating 83
Rating 88 (TWE single Barrel)


This just proves that single barrels is something that needs to be explored with bourbon and ryes as I have been doing for years with single malts