Buttered cornbread | Baking spices | Maple syrup | Raisin | Sweet

Maple syrup | Rye spice | Animal crackers | Very sweet | Cohesive | Thick mouthfeel

Maple syrup base | Toasted marshmallow | Brown sugar | Light spice on the backend | Long & sweet

Very Olde St. Nick was originally released in the 1980s as an export-only whiskey to the Japanese market. This continued for years, and the source of the whiskey was ever-changing, with most speculating its original sources being Stitzel-Weller, Heaven Hill, and Willett Distillery. The brand was first released in the United States in the mid-2010s. Today, Very Old St. Nick Distillery is owned and operated by Marci Palatella, who also owns Preservation Distillery which is located in Bardstown, Kentucky.

Winter Maple Rye Whiskey is a flavored whiskey, with a Canadian rye base with added natural flavors (presumably including maple syrup). It’s clearly maple-focused, with maple syrup flavors permeating throughout the whiskey from start to finish. It’s characteristically sweet as a result, and certainly won’t be for whiskey traditionalists. At the same time, the base rye provides a solid structure and complementary spice resulting in a cohesive marriage of flavors that comes together nicely and is by no means too sweet as flavored whiskeys typically are. With that being said, at $180 it’s quite an ask for a flavored whiskey, as much of the taste feels driven by the addition of natural flavors, which feels off for such a high priced whiskey even if it is nicely executed.

The bottle in review has a designation code of I-YE-3.