Echo Spirits Straight Rye Whiskey Single Barrel Selection Review
It’s always interesting to see a new distillery starts figuring out what their niche is. Echo Spirits is doing that now right in front of our eyes. With many of the other local distilleries focused in on bourbon, that leaves rye whiskey that is less crowded. They now have gotten to the point that they are ready to put out a limited distillery only release of a single barrel rye whiskey. We will find out if what they thought was a special barrel measures up for a special single barrel release.
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NAME – Echo Spirits Straight Rye Whiskey Single Barrel Selection
PROOF – 93
AGE – non-age stated but states 3 years on the website
COLOR –dried fallen oak leaf (1.5 auburn, polished mahogany on the Whiskey Magazine Color Chart)
NOSE – Milk chocolate, vanilla cream puff, dried tobacco, cinnamon dolce latte, and a toasted oak
TASTE – Cinnamon vanilla swirl hits you first. The is then a white pepper bite on the sides of the tongue. There is toffee, espresso, and some honey.
FINISH – I would call this a medium finish. A great coffee note lingers in the back and the rye spice leaves a nice spicy heat that lingers. A tobacco note sneaks in for a split second at the very end.
REVIEW – This is not void of all typical rye notes, but this has none of the grassy or minty notes that is common with a rye that has a mash bill of 95% rye. Really has an interesting coffee note in slightly different variations throughout. This is not a typical straight rye and has several dark notes not normal in a 3-year whiskey. When doing a special single barrel release, you want something that is atypical, but it still needs to be good. This bottle succeeds on both accords. Very nice release.
FINAL COMMENTS – Its always hard to put yourself out there for the first time saying what you have is special and you should buy it. If you are wrong, it would take 10 more great special releases to gain back the trust of the buying public. It may be doubly so when you are putting out a rye whiskey that doesn’t have all the normal rye tasting profiles. Kudos to Echo Spirits for have the guts to put this bottle out and what I would call a very successful first special release.
