The High West Double Rye is a daily drinker. A versatile rye that delivers on smooth drinkable rye and robust flavor that doesn’t leave you looking for more. It’s full of body and the only thing(s) better than the Double Rye are the High West Rendezvous Rye and it’s older brothers the Rocky Mountain 16 & 21.
Besides having a warm and inviting flavor it also smells great. It smells like a rye whiskey ought to smell. Just giving it a deep sniff makes you feel like you’re alive and in a wonderful place. It smells like the whiskey soaked table in an old saloon. As for character the bottle + label design + flavor makes it look, taste, and feel like it just came off of the set of an old western and is looking to get rowdy.
Double rye gets it’s name from it being a blend of two different ryes. The first one being a 2 year old rye with 95% rye 5% barley malt (same as Bulleit rye) and the second one being a 16 year old rye with 53% rye and 37% corn. One thing to note is that High West is a relatively new distillery and doesn’t have their own whiskey yet so they get whiskey from places like Lawrenceburg Distillers Indiana (LDI), who is basically a distillery for hire and who makes Bulleit Rye at the moment, and then blend the whiskeys themselves. Though some of their products have Four Roses bourbon in them so it’s not all LDI.
Overall I really love this whiskey and would say it’s a bit like drinking America. Complicated, but enjoyable. It’s completely worth having this guy in your house, especially if you’re looking to have a nice rye that you plan on sharing. If you’re getting a nice bottle of rye for yourself or as a gift then I would suggest you take the next step up and grab a bottle of his big brother the Rendezvous Rye.
If you’ve tried the High West Double Rye please share your own tasting notes in the comments section below.
High West Double Rye Review
ABV: 46%
Price: $34
Distiller: LDI (Lawrenceburg Distillers Indiana) – Blended by High West
Batch: 13007
Bottle: 565
EYE
Dark brown caramel
NOSE
The smell is strangely acrid at first. Burns the nostrils just a smidge. However right after that come wonderful notes of maple and candied cherries. A bit of iodine and a hint of pine round out it’s cologne.
TASTE
On the surface it has all of the usual caramel and “rye spice” notes, but once you get it to open up and tell you more about itself you find that it’s quite down to earth, even earthy one might say. It has some leather in there and a touch of tobacco letting you know that deep down it’s a country boy. Though before leaving the party he leaves a wonderful bit of burnt toffee for everyone to enjoy.
FEEL
Warm, inviting and a little oily. While it is mostly a smooth sip, it does have a bit of a kick to it letting you now that he may be a gentleman, he ain’t no dandy.
FINISH
This one has a nice long finish full of rye, wood, caramel and a hint of tobacco.
SCORE: 85/100
Full disclosure – I’ve never tried the bottles containing 16 year rye, so I have no way to compare those with the current batches. That being said, I think this is a taster rye whiskey at a good value. The issue I am having with High West is their prices are going up but their whiskeys are getting younger and apparently not as complex.
Don’t know how old the bottle I just purchased is (my first High West bottle), but it is the best rye I’ve had to date. Even though I agree that the overwhelming majority of this whiskey is the younger LDI (you can’t hide the dill pickle note), I got a complex smells of pine, eucalyptus, citrus peel , and clove. The flavors ranged from dill, citrus, craft beer hops, and black strap licorice. It’s amazing that this stuff can take 3 things I don’t really care for (hoppy craft beer, licorice, and eucalyptus) and turn them into the best rye I’ve had so far. Looking forward to trying the Rendezvous and the Campfire!
I just finished a bottle of the Double Rye (Batch #17006), so thought I would add my experience. I found it overall to be fairly rough and unbalanced, with the aroma and taste of oak to be a bit overwhelming. We tried it alongside Bulleit Rye and a locally produced whiskey made from 100% 2-row barley. No one tried the Double Rye twice and kept going back for more of the others. However, I enjoyed reading your thoughtful review.
Hey Bernd,
Thank you! The HW Double Rye has changed a LOT over the years. The current stuff is a shadow of what it used to be and it keeps getting younger. Right now it’s essentially the same thing as the Bulleit rye (both 1005 MGP) but it might be a bit younger than Bulleit. For the HW right now it’s all about the Rendezvous.
Cheers!
We’ve had a few bottles of Double Rye here, and it always satisfies. Last night my wife and I shared a couple of glasses, and it was absolutely wonderful! I don’t have much experience with pricier ryes, but I expect to buy a bottle of Rendezvous Rye very soon. The Double is so good that I imagine that the RR will amaze us. Thanks for the reviews.
Cheers Daniel, if you like the DR you should definitely like the RR. I think it’s a deeper richer rye and worth every penny in the price increase in my mind. Hope you get to try it soon!
We live about an hour away from Park City so we took a drive up today. Had lunch and I sampled Rendezvous Rye, a limited bottling Rendezvous Rye(cask strength 105 proof I think and it was aged an extra 6 months in a sherry cask I believe but I could be wrong on the cask type), Campfire and finally Bourye.
The Rendezvous and the cask strength version were great, the cask strength was just what you would expect. A stronger version of Rendezvous and the barrel finishing was a nice touch aswell, but side by side it didn’t taste so much better to justify $15 more than the regular Rendezvous IMO.
Bourye was great but at $80 I think I can find a lot of bottles that beat it out for less.
The winner winner was the campfire. There is just nothing out there like it. My first nose was sweet corn and caramel, the second was rye spice, and then the peat came out. The taste and finish went basically in the same order. Its a little spendy but that is the only of their more expensive drams that I think is completely worth the price of admission.
At the end of the day my daily drinker from High West is the Double Rye. Its excellent and priced well.
Cheers Ken! I love the Campfire as well (and the Double Rye and Rendezvous Rye…). High West puts out some good stuff and visiting them up in PC is one of the few things I miss about living in SLC.
All about the spice, sort of a ‘more of what you came here for’ proposition. Now I’ve got to find some Rendezvous Rye.
thanks for a great review. the double rye is truly a great daily pour!
keep an eye out for some of the barrel finished bottles coming out. i have a campfire finish at home (extra 20 months in the barrel) that is fantastic!