Rye spice | White grapes | Nutmeg | Chamomile tea | Unique combination

Coffee beans | Cocoa powder | Extra dark chocolate | Rye spice | Dry leather | Slightly bitter

Lemon zest | Baking chocolate | Touch of oak | Cornbread | Slightly tannic

Hinterhaus is a German word, which essentially translates to “rear building, house in the back.” Founded by Nate and Bonnie Randall, the distillery opened in 2020 in Arnold, California. They produce whiskey, vodka, gin, and liqueur through a combination of in-house distilling and sourcing the base components used in their products.

Trapper’s Oath is an 18 year old Canadian rye whiskey that was finished in stout beer casks that originally held the company’s Hinterhaus Bourbon. This particular bottle is from batch 2, which consists of only 384 bottles, aged for 18 years and 5 months, and was bottled on 9/28/2022 according to the company’s very detailed information sheet.

Going down a road less traveled is always interesting in the American whiskey space, and I really like Hinterhaus Distillery’s adventurous spirit that spans their entire product line. An 18 year old Canadian rye whiskey finished in ex-stout beer casks that also formerly aged bourbon is certainly a road less traveled. The whiskey offers a range of flavors not typically found together, registering high on the uniqueness scale as its most notable trait. A smattering of rye spice, various chocolate notes, some citrus, coffee bean, leather, and chamomile tea are just some of the flavors I picked up. However, it’s less rich than I hoped it would be, and has a slight bitterness that shows up in the palate and transitions to a slightly dry tannic note in the finish. Because of this it’s not a home run, but more of an adventure in unique flavors with some notable flaws. At $127 for a bottle - of which there were very few produced - it’s by no means a daily drinker but is instead a pretty solid deal for an 18 year old whiskey that won’t taste like anything else on your shelf.