If I had tried last year’s Parker’s Heritage Collection (PHC) release in 2022, it would’ve been my bourbon of the year. It was that good. I point that out because not every PHC has been my favorite; some I’ve outright despised.

So when it was announced that this year’s release would be a 10-Year-Old Cask Strength Rye, I got excited. Using Heaven Hill’s barely-legal rye mashbill (51% rye, 35% corn, 14% malted barley), this would not only be older than any regular rye release but at a higher proof, too. I qualify this only because some high-proof ryes have come out through Heaven Hill Select Stock and it’s nearly impossible to track all of those one-off releases down.

Barely-legal rye, also sometimes called Maryland-style or Kentucky-style, is low-corn, sweet, and utterly different from the dilly, herbaceous 95/5 coming from over the Ohio River. Still, with a majority of rye grain, nobody can accuse Heaven Hill of producing a rye that doesn’t taste like rye - Rittenhouse and Pikesville can attest to that.

Which makes this release so…confounding.

It’s not bad, and I don’t dislike it. The heavy char trio, I disliked. This I like, but blind, I’d struggle to identify it as a rye. The color is dark enough to indicate intense barrel interaction, even considering 10 years of maturation. Barrel char is abundant, and the proof is remarkably in check for 128.8.

The only thing missing is the rye.

Vanilla is the star of this show. It’s not overly sweet, reminding me of a morning bun that has just a touch of sugar and cinnamon but is more pastry than anything else. Coarse cracked black pepper studs the barrel-driven vanilla, giving a hint of what you expect from rye, but it’s subtle enough that I’d likely consider it a high-rye component in a bourbon rather than the rye being the primary grain.

The lack of rye notes beyond the black pepper is intriguing. Rittenhouse and Pikesville are recognizably ryes and come from the same mashbill, and older ryes don’t show such muting in just 10 years. A question came to mind: does the barely-legal rye recipe make it more susceptible to losing the guaiacols and herbaceous congeners? Was this a particularly active batch of new charred oak barrels where the vanillins somehow became overactive? How differently do different rye mashbills behave with ostensibly identical new charred oak casks?

This release was also batched from three distillations in August, October, and December of 2012. The barrels were aged in:

Rickhouses H1 and H2 on their respective first floors
Rickhouse FF, 5th floor
Rickhouse BB, 3rd and 7th floors, and
Rickhouse DD, 2nd floor

Rickhouses H1 and H2 are located at Heaven Hill’s main campus, while the other three are at Deatsville. All are seven-story warehouses, though those at Deatsville are designed with three-tiered roofs from the old T. W. Samuels days. Aside from the unspecified volume aged on the 7th floor at BB, these are mid-to-low-tier barrels more suited to either longer aging or to blending against longer- or higher-aged stock.

All this begs the question, what profile were the folks at Heaven Hill looking to achieve? The selection suggests a subtle rye profile approachable for the bourbon drinker, something borne out in a dram that is both high proof and low in expected flavor for that proof. Was it meant to be a showcase for what the Heaven Hill rye profile could be at that proof and age? Was it meant to differentiate itself?

Many questions to ask and more to answer, but ultimately I don’t think this is worth the MSRP (not that you’ll see it at that, anyway). Closer to $100 I’d be more amenable.

Perhaps it’s an unfair comparison and a straw man at that, but I couldn’t help comparing this to Booker’s Rye. Universally regarded as one of the best ryes in history upon release in 2013, it was a vision of what Beam rye could be (and, to be honest, not a single Beam rye product has come within a continent of it since). It was meant to be different, unique, and memorable. It succeeded on all counts. 10 years later, it’s still memorable to anyone who’s had a taste.

As good as this might be, I don’t think we’ll be saying the same 10 years on.

This sample was graciously provided by Heaven Hill at no cost. All opinions herein are my own.

Parker’s Heritage Collection 10-Year-Old Cask Strength Rye Whiskey (17th Edition): Specs

Classification: Straight Rye Whiskey

Producer: Heaven Hill

Mashbill: 51% Rye, 35% Corn, 14% Malted Barley

Proof: 128.8 (64.4% ABV)

Age: 10 Years Old

Location: Kentucky

Parker’s Heritage Collection 10-Year-Old Cask Strength Rye Whiskey (17th Edition) Price: $84.99

No Official Website

Parker’s Heritage Collection 10-Year-Old Cask Strength Rye Whiskey (17th Edition): Tasting Notes

Eye: Dark maple syrup. Nonexistent rims, with tiny droplets where rims would normally be.

Nose: Even at 51% rye, it’s tough to pull this out as a rye whiskey at first. It’s tasty and sweet on the nose. Oak blooms nicely with up-the-nostrils proof. Dark, almost funky back-of-the-warehouse dampness in one that hasn’t been opened all year.

Palate: Proof more apparent right away, grabbing the tongue with barrel char on the front half. More air gives this a rye bread or dark pumpernickel loaf crust, tons of cigar wrapper and opening the door of a humidor. Mouthfeel is medium side of thin, astringent, black pepper roaring forward. This is where the rye is the most powerful, rolling from back to front, but it still feels like a component rather than the star.

Finish: Honey wheat bread, the numbing and tingling of a great high-proof rye without the expected flavors. Vanilla-spiked brown sugar cookies continue for a while after the numbing fades.

Overall: It’s a fine, even great whiskey, but one that lacks an identity. There are elements of good ECBP bottlings in here, and this is very much a bourbon drinker’s rye. If this weren’t a PHC and were bottled as a cask-strength Heaven Hill rye, this could easily grab $80-$100. Lacking that intentionality, however, it’s tough to rate this. As a rye, this barely cracks a 6/10. As a whiskey, it gets closer to a 7/10. Without knowing more about the thought process behind this creation, I’m going to split the difference and tell people to read above for the parts important to them.

Final Rating: 6.5

10 | Insurpassable | Nothing Else Comes Close

9 | Incredible | Extraordinary

8 | Excellent | Exceptional

7 | Great | Well above average

6 | Very Good | Better than average

5 | Good | Good, solid, ordinary

4 | Has promise but needs work

1-3 | Let’s have a conversation