Nose - Very sharp sweet red berry/ethanol cleaning product note, alcoholic mint-berry windex, vanilla buttercream frosting after a while. Taste - Very splenda-sweet medicinal mint berry cough drops, vanilla simple with orange zest, light cocoa nib bittersweet, drying tannic heat. Finish - Lingering cocoa nib/orange bittersweet, very splenda-like artificial sweet, diabetes sweet spearmint. Score - 10/100 Final Thoughts - At least to me, there is nothing about this whiskey that is pleasant. It smelled like a cleaning product targeted towards kids, tasted like one, and left a very unpleasant splenda/equal sweet taste. Maybe secale rye isn't for me? Regardless I couldn't find anything I liked about this one and I went back & forth on how low a score I could reasonably give this one as it will probably be my benchmark for bad whiskey. I settled on 10/100 because they bothered to make something & actually bottle it for sale. I think if I actually purchased a bottle of this, I'd probably go back & demand my money back it was so bad. If I could give this 0 stars, I would.
About this bottle
This open-air fermented, sour mash style whiskey is double distilled. Aged three years in heavily charred American oak barrels, this blend of 95% rye and 5% barley from Laws Whiskey House in Denver Colorado comes in at a solid 100 proof. This whiskey is the blended half of 10 barrels of whiskey produced by Laws, with the other half being bottled as single barrel expressions of rye whiskey. The name is "Secale" comes from the Latin name for rye--"secale cereale". Only 750 bottles were released in 2015 and will not be available again until the fall of 2016.
How it tastes
Measured across 14 flavor axes. Tap a note to find other bottles that lead with it.
Reviews
Showing the most detailed of 11 parsed reviews.
So—-the bad news first : one more hour of a flight delay at Denver. I already had one AD Laws Four Grain for the first hour delay...now this for the second hour. Hopefully no more delays—-two pours is all I can manage Weak nose. Very un-rye. Palette is weak...I was hoping for more punch. If you’re in CO and want to try a local spirit, it’s worth the experience. But don’t waste your suitcase space in picking up a bottle. There’s better ryes there for a fraction of the price.
Aroma is soft, pleasant, fruity and my favorite part of the whiskey with its layered dessert sweet delivery… just wish those butyric and young woody notes weren’t there; Palate starts tight and overly “crafty”, but slowly opens to something more fruity and rustic though it never looses that craft-woody-saw-dusty dominance; Finish starts woody and fades to a fruity note that reminds me of good Chilean Pisco (Bau Barroetta 9 year to be exact)… so odd.
Well darn. Was hoping for richness but got a fruity, herbal left hook in 8th round. This thing does keep up Laws' tradition of complexity (smile) but just not my idea of rye (frown). If you must choose, pick up the Laws Four Grain Bourbon instead.
Amazing dark aroma that I can't really place. The flavor is light grain at first, then the spice all floods in. Light spices, like baking spices. The delayed flavor is an interesting touch. Heat isn't too much.
I love this whiskey. Great balance of sweet, floral, great staying power, doesn't taste as strong as it is. Looking forward to the next release.
5 more reviews were collected for this bottle. The longest ones are shown first.
Tastes like this
Closest flavor profiles across the whole catalog.
