Sonoma County Rye Review [From Paris with Love]

Hi everyone,

Daves Whisky Reviews is 1 year old! Yay! It's the blog's anniversary today. Does that mean anything special? Not particularly. Business as usual: More reviews.

This is my first Sonoma County review, so I don’t know a huge lot about ‘em. What I’ve heard though, is that they use a traditional double distillation in pot stills using direct fired stills. Really interesting stuff. Don’t know if that’s being done a lot over in the US? But seems unique anyway.

This particular version is made using a 100% Rye mashbill, which is also pretty unique as ‘Rye Whiskey’ only has to contain 51% in the mashbill.

Tasted this recently at Whisky Live Paris.

Sonoma County Rye 48%

Colour: Bronze

Body: Full

Nose: Rubbery and weird, massive clove note, herbal, more clove. A huge clove bomb on the nose and nothing much behind it other than this weird rubbery flavour.

Taste: Same on the palate, a massive clove bomb. Burnt rubber. Almost doesn’t taste like whisky, we’re in strange territory here.

Finish: Short/medium length. Rubbery.

Quality is there but definitely not my thing. I don’t know if this would have to age for longer, maybe that’s the problem here. If you’re a massive lover of clove though, perhaps you’ll like this.

62/100

Thanks for reading!

American Whiskey Review #29

Whisky Network Review #533

American Average: 69.3

Network Average: 74.3

Best Score: 92

Worst Score: 22

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as a Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

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