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WhistlePig has been up to plenty of whiskey shenanigans over the past year or two, and that’s just fine. Otherwise, we wouldn’t get to try rye whiskey subjected to G forces that was flavored with oolong tea, or whiskey aged in barrels charred with Solo stoves, and life would be pretty boring. The latest release from the Vermont distillery, however, is pretty basic compared to these, and that’s a very good thing—WhistlePig 12 Single Barrel Rye Whiskey Aged in Shafer Cabernet Sauvignon Barrels is exactly what it sounds like.
For this release, WhistlePig used its 12-year-old rye whiskey, which is sourced from Alberta Distillers in Canada, as the base spirit. For the core 12 Year Old World Rye, that whiskey is finished in Madeira, Sauternes, and port barrels. For this new release, however, the whiskey was finished in just one type of cask for 32 months—60-gallon French oak barrels that previously held Cabernet Sauvignon wine from Shafer Vineyards in Napa Valley.
This is not exactly a new type of cask finish; in fact, it’s one that has been done many times before. But sometimes simplicity is a good thing. “We like to say it takes 12 years, a spectacular cabernet barrel, and one sip to convert a wine drinker to a whiskey buff,” said head blender Meghan Ireland in a statement. “The WhistlePig 12 Single Barrel Rye Whiskey Shafer Edition delivers on that and more. We’re thrilled to release just eight barrels from our experimental warehouse in time for pairing with a great fall dinner.”
As Ireland indicated, this is a single-barrel release, so each bottle may vary depending upon which barrel it was pulled from. But overall, this is an expertly done cask-finished rye whiskey, with notes of raisin, vanilla, black pepper, dried cherry, and a hint of earthiness on the palate underlying the dried fruit notes to let you know that the rye whiskey is still front and center. Chalk it up to the quality of the whiskey and the wine barrels from Shafer, as well as a good sense of when to dump them so as not to let the flavor go overboard.
There is clearly not a whole lot of bottles of this new whiskey floating around, considering it came from just eight barrels, but definitely grab one if you see it out in the wild. Your best chance might be to order a pour at one of the restaurants that these bottles be showing up in this fall, and you can always purchase the rest of the WhistlePig lineup at websites like ReserveBar.
