Review: Pinhook’s Vertical Series Rye Is Aging Like a Fine Wine

What we’re drinking: Pinhook Vertical Series Rye 9 Year

Where it’s from: Launched in 2010 with all sourced product, Pinhook began releasing small batches in 2014. All Pinhook barrels are now aged, blended and bottled at Castle & Key in Frankfort, KY; since 2017, Pinhook has been also distilling proprietary mash bills of bourbon and rye there.

Why we’re drinking this: If you’ve read the description above, you realize Pinhook — now contract distilling its own whiskey — has some leftover barrels from its early days. Early on, the company acquired a number of barrels from MGP, a spirits producer in Indiana that supplies several non-distilling whiskey brands with liquid.

“I was thinking, ‘What are the different things that we can do with these barrels? It was a cool problem to solve,” says Sean Josephs, co-founder and master distiller of Pinhook. “And if you’re a wine person, there’s this idea of a vertical. The idea is that you’re looking at a wine list — it’s the same producer, same wine and a series of vintages with no gaps, and you can really taste wines from different vintages and appreciate how different they taste. And so that was the inspiration for saying, ‘What would it look like to create a vertical of bourbon and rye?’”

So with the Vertical Series, bourbon and rye fans can follow a group of barrels as they age — beginning with its release at four years — and taste the impact of that time resting in wood.

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“It’s actually from the original germs of an idea for Pinhook because I was a sommelier,” Josephs says. “Instead of replicating a homogeneous flavor profile, you make a vintage just like wine. Every year, you take your mature barrels, you look at them as your harvest and you make the best whiskey you can. Each vintage then stands out on its own.”

It makes for an interesting argument — is it the barrel, mash bill, water, yeast or something else that’s going to affect your whiskey the most? Josephs argues it’s time. “That’s the number one factor that’s going to influence how a bourbon or rye tastes,” he says. “So let’s isolate that variable.”

We liked the six- and seven-year Vertical Ryes a few years back, so let’s jump ahead to the current nine-year expression.

Pinhook Is Showcasing Rye Like a Wine Vintage

Their Vertical Series is a yearly release devoted entirely to the impact of age on a whiskey’s character

How it tastes: The Pinhook Vertical Series Rye 9 Year was blended from just 20 barrels and bottled at cask strength (111.2 proof). All the releases in the series are blended from the same lot of 450 MGP-sourced barrels with a mash bill of 95% rye and 5% barley. There’s an amazing root beer or sasparilla note that dominates here, with a nice dose of vanilla. It shows a lot of growth and change from earlier rye editions, and has actually none of the dill note that tends to dominate MGP ryes.

“Dill was a very one-note thing driving some of those,” Josephs says. “And what I try to do, whether I’m successful or not as a blender, is to avoid having just that one note. That’s a challenge some people have with MGP rye — they smell that one note and that’s all they can get.”

Fun fact: Initially set to end at 12 years, Josephs says he will now push the series to 16 years, noting that the aging environment at Castle & Key (where Pinhook has aged the MGP barrels since they were one year old) is cold and humid, resulting in a slower and less wood-extractive aging process.

Where to buy: Pinhook’s Vertical Series Rye 9 Year carries a suggested retail price of $89.99. It’s available through Breeze, Pinhook’s text-to-buy platform (833-332-2118); Pinhook’s website; and select retailers nationwide.