The world of ryes has radically exploded in recent years. Far from the typical North American Rye, Europe has some serious contenders in this space. This makes perfect sense when you consider over 50% of the world’s rye comes from Europe – with Germany leading the way!

And whilst I’ve had a chance to try some interesting ryes lately at Whisky festivals, sitting down at home (or a friend’s home, in this case), for a proper tasting is always preferable to the quick sniff, swish & spit of a large Whisky fest!

What I love about this particular tasting set is how a “standard” expression was paired with a slightly different or limited edition expression from the same distillery. This way we could get a feel for the ‘house style’ along with variations on that theme.

So what did we explore?

“Roggen (aka Rye) Revolution” with 3 sets of pairs:

• Denmark: Stauning Rye 48% & Stauning El Clásico 45,7% – Here the standard Rye would be the way to go, as El Clásico’s experiment with combining Rye with ex White-Wine barrels and ex-Sherry is a bit odd..
• Finland: Kyrö Malt Rye Whisky 47.2% & Kyrö Wood Smoke Rye 47.2% – The Wood Smoke was a clear favourite with the standard Rye also interesting
• Germany: Stork Club Straight Rye 45% & Stork Club Full Proof Rye 55% – The “party” favourite would clearly be the Straight Rye! Whereas we found the Full Proof experiment with Vermouth (Manhattan in a barrel?) something a bit… um… different

Whilst 6 different ryes may seem like a lot to go through at one “go”, when these are minis of only 30 ml each shared between three people, it’s a perfect teasing taste! And when the price is a mere Eur 20 – it’s also a great deal!

All of the distilleries, we’d had previous experiences, which you can read about here:

• Kyrö intro at London Whisky Show
• Stauning Young Rye (2010/2011) 49.3%, Peated 2nd Edition 55%,  Mezcal Finish 46.3%
• Stork Single Malt 43%

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