Another one of these insanely good secret whiskies that ain't so secret no more. It's true that the Willett Distillery has partnered with their very first official 3rd party brand recently - the wonderful Binder's Stash guys- but those whiskies will be exclusively experimental stocks AND around the same prices as Purple tops from the Family Estate. This may be one of our last chances to get this 100% 13% rye mashbills in the gold label that we've done so well with over the years. In previous releases at slightly higher ages and nearly 50% more expensive, these whiskies sold out in an instant. Now, because the brand has co-mingled some new juice with this old sourced stuff, the drinking public raises an eyebrow. But I'm here to tell you this is the real deal. We don't get many like this and since they've lost the contract, it's unclear how many more of these we might see. I don't care, they're unquestionably delicious and this barrel is one of the best we'll have. Let's taste it. The color is a deep auburn (1.5). The nose is one of the more classically bourbon-y of the grouping of casks we purchase - dense sweet oak, caramelized sugar, chocolate malted balls, espresso roast, power clove and cinnamon. The palate turns the cinnamon up a few notches, but adds an almost fig jam sweetness to the mid palate- offering a candied character that contrasts the big spicy entry in a lovely way. This is extremely well developed and feels pretty significantly older than the solidly respectable age statement. An exceptional value that forces us to reminisce of another age when these special whiskies were both available and affordable.