Heaven's Door Straight Rye Whiskey

Good day fine folks. Hope that your week is progressing nicely and that this message finds you in good spirit and health. The draft kicks off tomorrow right here in the home of the 2022 Super Bowl Champions. What better way to kick off the festivities than with some juice straight out of Heaven.....cause that’s exactly where I’ll be if the squad does at least as good as last season. Today we try Heavens Door rye. On the nose this one doesn’t give many clues on what to expect from the sip. I catch a few notes that are reminiscent of the apple juice that comes in the glass jar with the white top, and alcohol. Other than that she goes full on Marshawn Lynch.....Any spices in there?, “Apple juice.” Any char, any fruit?, “Apple juice.” Any hint of vanilla?, “You know why I’m here....apple juice.” And that’s about it for the nose. I seriously had to go sniff a bottle of Howler Head to make sure my schnoz wasn’t broken. Unlike the AE rye, the Seagrass, or even the bandaid bandit, that I got hate mail for, this one just doesn’t bring the aroma. While the nose pretends as though the big game isn’t important, the sip goes full on Beast Mode. It starts out on the 1-yard line with a bit of an ash or charcoal taste that I’m assuming is from the rye. A quick stiff-arm and the taste of peanut butter dipped apples rushes into the secondary for a first down. Will the result change on the second or third play? Nope. There it is again. Stiff-arm, head down and more peanut butter apples that truck over your taste buds with an excellent block from Mr Rye, first and goal. Whatcha gonna do now HD? Bring on the spice? Bring in some sweetness? Burn em with a flea flicker like Carroll in 49? Nope....Same play, same result.....well at least for the Heavens Door rye, not the Seahawks. Absolutely nothing changed for me in either aroma or taste, despite letting it sit in the G-glass for 30 minutes, or drinking half the bottle. Just that same clean charcoal to PB&A boringness that at 92p gives no burn and makes this one a decent sipper and probably a better mixer. If your looking for no burn, modest sweetness in the form of thinned out apple juice, peanut butter, a bit of char, and IMO no real character, this one is for you. I got this one in a trilogy pack alongside their Double Barrel and Straight Bourbon offerings for $60. Making my little bottle of rye $20. Would I spend a Jackson on this in the future....no....not when I can grab a fifth of OF rye or EC rye for the same or not much more. IMO Carroll should have stuck to the script against the Goat. The folks over at HD should have drawn in an extra play or at least some additional character to get my bucks (no pun). 🥃 Happy Humpday. ✌🏾Go Dawgs.

Rating: 15/23 I'm seeing now that this is MGP. Kind of disappointing. N: Fairly light, but with a clean flavor. Dill hits immediately, emphasizing the high percentage of rye. Hints of mint and anise before some sweet caramel notes come out - though not a lot of those. I get a little bit of wood, but I really have to dig past the grain for it. P: On the light side, but it isn't showing excessive alcohol. Sweet, light caramel with an oddly sweet graininess to it that makes me think a bit of corn, but that I suspect is the barley. A little wood with a hint of vanilla before some pricky spice comes out. There is of course some herbaceous bitterness here with anise dill, and a touch of mint. F: Sweet, light caramel with some lingering ginger, dill, pepper, and occasional hint of lemon - Conclusion - This is a very approachable, but also boring, dram. It's light and sweet, but also young and not terribly complex. This is probably a bit better than Rittenhouse (14/23), but it isn't as good as Russell's Reserve Single Barrel Rye (17/23). At moments, I think that it might be competitve with Pikesville (16/23), but then I also find it inferior to Russell's Reserve 10 (15-16/23). Non-transitive preferences can go straight to hell. No, I actually don't think that this is on the same level as Pikesville anymore. It's closer to Elijah Craig Small Batch (15/23) and I go back and forth between it and my bottle of Smooth Ambler Old Scout Rye Single Barrel 5 Years (14/23). I think I'm looking at a 14 or 15 here. Right now, I'm feeling like it's a 14, but looking where I've been hovering around during this tasting, it seems more like a 15. It makes me a little sad to realize that I like this more than the other Heaven's Door mainline releases. Not massively more, but more nonetheless. One one hand, Heaven's Door has done a respectable job aging (or selecting) MGP rye. On the other hand, I don't feel guilty in expecting more of a craft distillery. I'm going with a 15, but it's very borderline.

A balanced, Straight Rye Whiskey by Bob Dylan & Marc Bushala founders of Heaven's Door Spirits in Tennessee finished in air-dried French “cigar” casks from Vosges, France — “cigar” casks are longer with a narrower diameter which increases wood contact. It has an aromatic birth with notes of roses, violets, juicy berries & spice cake; while a rich & bold life adds notes of vanilla toffee, wet wood, chocolate cookies, a hint of mango & white pepper; that led to a long & warming death with notes of clove & mint. July 2020 / August 2022

This might be my favorite out of the lineup, even though it's a bit more one-dimensional. The double had a lot more going on. The nose is sweet. I get some floral notes. But heavy sweet, candied orange, almost reminiscent of orange soda. The flavor is still on the sweeter side, with light cinnamon peppermint.

Oh man, the nose on this is fantastic! Perfumed, floral, caramel, anise, chocolate, orange peel, leather and vanilla. 4.5 Palate: Somewhat young, bitter, sweet, oaky, caramel, cocoa, spice and a bit of vanilla and butterscotch. 3.5 Finish: Long & peppery, light caramel and citrus. 3.25 Averaged out to 3.75

I really like this whiskey. It has a fairly mellow, but smooth flavor on the nose. The taste is similarly smooth with a great deal of that rye spiciness. The finish is a little thin, but without much bite. A higher-proof bottling of Heaven’s Door rye would be interesting, but this version is very good.