Last Night's Tipple

I know that I said I would vat Caol Ila and Clynelish together and compare the result to Compass Box Eleuthera, but I didn't feel like it. I promise to refund every cent of the money that you paid to access this site. Instead, I decided to give Old Overholt Rye a try.

Old Overholt is one of the grand old brands in American Whiskey. The Overholt distillery was founded in 1810 by Abraham Overholt in western Pennsylvania, although the Overholts had been making whiskey in the New World since the mid 18th Century. Their surname was originally Overholtzer, and they were (shockingly enough) German immigrants. Most people who give the matter a casual thought believe that the pioneers of the American whiskey business were predominantly Scottish and Scotch-Irish, but this is not universally so. Many or most of the distillers of rye whiskey in Pennsylvania and Maryland were of German descent, and the same is true of some of the early Bourbon distillers in Kentucky. The Beams of Bourbon fame were originally the Boehms, immigrants from Germany. I have read that American rye whiskey has its roots in an unaged, colorless rye-based spirit produced in eastern Germany and western Poland (ie, something very close to vodka), although I have not been able to find a reliable source for that. In any event, Old Overholt was family-owned until the late 19th Century, and that family was of German extraction. Through a series of coincidences, by 1919 two thirds of the distillery passed into the hands (either directly owned or controlled in trust) of financier Andrew Mellon, who became President Harding's Secretary of the Treasury in 1921. His ownership in the distillery was no small embarrassment to Mellon when he became Secretary, not least because one of his chief duties was to regulate and shut down distilleries during Prohibition. He unloaded it as soon as he could, although not without Democratic-leaning newspapers attempting to make his ownership and the sale of his stake into a scandal. Through a series of transactions in the middle and late part of the 20th Century, the Old Overholt distillery and brand passed into the control of Jim Beam in 1987. The distillery was soon closed, but the brand lives on, produced at the Beam distillery in Claremont, KY.

Jim Beam makes two rye whiskeys: Jim Beam Straight Rye and Old Overholt Straight Rye. Both are made from the same mashbill on the same stills, and both carry age statements saying that they are four years old. But they don't taste at all alike. Jim Beam Rye is grassy and young and zippy, and to me, it doesn't taste like a typical rye. I like it, and I think that a lot of the grief it gets online is a result of snobbery rather than an evaluation on its merits; but it's not like other rye whiskeys that I've tried. Old Overholt is. In fact, if someone were looking for a whiskey that typifies the style, I would recommend Old Overholt. There is a powerful spicy rye punch as soon as I smell the glass. With some time, that mellows into some vanilla, which seems a bit odd to me for a whiskey that's only four years old. It's smooth and spicy on the palate. This is just about the most drinkable whiskey that I've tried. By that, I don't mean that it's the best, just that it's very appetizing, and it doesn't tire me out. I would be interested to see what this would taste like at 100 proof instead of 80, but, alas, such a beast does not exist. At $12 a fifth, this is an outstanding bargain and the perfect way to get into American straight rye whiskey.