Town Branch Rye

Working Title: “Spice Me Up! We’ll Worry About the Taste Later.” Prologue: TGiF! Looong week...it’s performance review time amid Covid and financial pressures on company’s top & bottom lines. Second wave of layoffs possibly in the works. So you know, good times? Prediction: I’ll go over my self-imposed 2 pour max per wknd day, this weekend. This bottle has been open for a few months . Currently at the half-way mark. Let’s jump in. N: From afar, a combo of ethanol, rubbing alcohol and rye spice wafts through the air, fighting for dominance. Reminds me of the weird-smelling faux hand-sanitizers, which were a by-product of early Covid response from distilleries pitching in and redirecting their production towards hand sanis. (Btw, If you haven’t experienced this yet, try smelling one of the off-brand hand sanitizers at your local grocery chain). As I nose closer to the glass, I get a bit of paint varnish, sweet vanillirye (yeah I made that up)...like what a genetically engineered hybrid of vanilla bean + rye grain would smell like. I also get some unfinished butter caramel. Kinda reminds me of first trial batch of DIY home-made caramel thrown together by an amateur home cook. Don’t ask me how I know. A little bit of water softens the alcohol hit and more of the vanilla peeks through. P: The warm spice hits you HARD upfront. Coats entire palate. Let me hear you say spice bomb! There’s some vanilla and bitter chocolate breaking through in the middle but still plays second fiddle to the hash rye spice, which I can only attribute to youthfulness. This one needs a little bit of time in the glass, and some H20 to open up. Adding a dash of agua and letting it sit, turns into a creamy vanilla mouthfeel. Now the spiciness complements the “not-quite-there” butter caramel, instead of fighting it. F: Long and spicy. Some bitter lemon notes. Nail varnish vapor still lingers. Epilogue: This one will probably make a killer old-fashioned. What it won’t make, is my permanent rotation, after bottle kill. A splash might end up in my infinity bottle for some spice kick, if it starts to trend towards sweet. Try, own, or pass? I will always try most things once but if I had a time machine, semi-hard pass on picking up the bottle.

I prefer rye over bourbon, just getting that out there. This is by far the best rye I have tried. On the nose it soft, not too sweet, oak, tropical, with a bit of that floweriness you might expect from a highland scotch. First on the tongue is alcohol (it is 100 proof), but not at all overpowering, just a nice coating of the tongue. Then it's just spicy, smooth, rich, but I'm sorry, can't really make out the flavors, which really aren't too deep.

This is a spivey and aggressive rye for 100 proof. On the nose you get the expected rye experience with sweet mint. The palate gets an initial burst of sugar that immediately turns hot with cinnamon and peppery notes dominating. I think this one and the operation as a whole shows a lot of promise. More age will defiantly help and I see a lot of good things to come from this brewstillery.

If you like a really spicy rye with some heat, then this is for you. I personally like using it for cocktails that call for a simple syrup because the spice balances the sweetness of the other ingredients. I get some honey and black cherry when sipping this on the rocks. But my neat pour was full of heat. There is definitely an audience for this bottle, I’m just not a part of it.

If you wait long enough there’s a long dill finish, very much like I just stuck a dill branch in my mouth. Not necessarily a bad thing. I like dill. But, everything before that is rather unpleasant- mostly just ethanol burn.

Doesn't hide the alcohol well enough here, and so is very abrasive up front. More woody than spicy as your mouth catches up (suggestive of a bourbon, rather than a rye). This one misses for me.