Peerless Pursuit (Round 4)! - Peerless High Rye Bourbon Review
Background
Front and center, a disclaimer- this bottle was provided to me by Peerless at no cost, no obligation to review and with no strings attached. I thank them for their generosity in doing so.
Ok, with that out of the way, let’s recap how we got to round four of Peerless reviews!
Round One: 3 Year Rye Single Barrel (Very Good - 6/10) and Double Oak Rye Master Distiller Pick (Great - 7/10). Full review here for anyone interested.
Round Two: 5 Year Bourbon Single Barrel (Very Good to Great - 6.5/10) and Double Oak Bourbon Master Distiller Pick (Excellent - 8/10). Full review here, and also RIP to this delicious bottle I’m sad I finished you.
Round Three: Absinthe Finished Rye (Very Good - 6/10) and 5 Year Rye Single Barrel (Excellent - 8/10). Full review here.
And that brings us to their upcoming High Rye Bourbon release, which will launch at their distillery this Saturday, 4/15, before being distributed more widely into Kentucky, Florida, Texas, New York, Illinois, and California. A few quick facts on this particular offering, then rolling right into the review:
As is with all Peerless offerings, they dont disclose their mashbill but note the rye count is over two times their standard bourbon offering.
Again consistent with their other products, this still utilizes sweet mash and everything from them is offered at barrel proof.
This will be a regular offering from them moving forward, though I admittedly dont have details on any sort of release cadence.
Peerless High Rye Bourbon (NAS, 110.5 Proof)
Nose: Plum, cocoa, walnut, leather. All darker notes for sure. Even the color on this is dark.
Palate: Polished wood, black licorice, a little bit of butterscotch, cola, some tobacco… there’s a lot going on here for sure.
Finish: Welcome to the party spices! Toasted oak, dark chocolate, cinnamon, allspice, pepper... Lot of spices!
Great (7/10)
Overall: A tasty and complex dram. I would say this is probably the pour you want as a night cap, or in front of the fire, only because it’s so rich and flavor dense that after about two (ok admittedly a little heavy) pours my palate was kind of exhausted. The end of the palate into the finish is a slow build of spices rather than an abrupt shift- but definitely a back loaded and spicy finish. Not a bad thing at all!
