High West A Midwinter Night's Dram in 3 Scenes

It's been long time since I've scrapped a week's worth of posts and then started over, but now here I am. Originally, this single post was going to be three separate posts with some bad Shakespeare jokes, but once I sat down to do this Triple Taste Off, I started noticing a difference in the underlying ryes. After doing some quick googling, I realized the rye recipes had changed, and I was reminded of my "Constellation Brands blows up High West Rendezvous Rye" post from 2019.

For those of you who have forgotten the High West tale, here's a recap. In 2016 Constellation Brands bought High West Distillery, a distillery who had to that point succeeded due to its blending of sourced whiskey rather than actual distillation, for $160 million. Between 2017 and 2018, High West ran out of its old sourced rye from Barton distillery, and swapped out the well-aged portion of their rye blends from that distillery for the very young rye from their own distillery, creating a sudden shift in the character of all their ryes.

My favorite post from the post-tasting snooping, Bourbon Culture's review of MWND Acts 5 through 10, dished out the above information, and more.

As Culture notes, the Midwinter Night's Dram Act 5 (aka 2017) batch recipe was:

"Website Description: A blend of older rye whiskeys ranging from 5 to 19 years 

95% rye, 5% barley malt from MGP 

53% rye, 37% corn, 10% barley malt from Barton Distillery 

80% rye, 10% corn, 10% barley malt from Barton Distillery"

The transition began with the Act 6 scenes/batches (from 2018):

"Website Description: A blend of older Straight Rye whiskeys ranging in age from 5 to 19 years 

95% rye, 5% barley malt from MGP 

80% rye, 20% malted rye from High West Distillery 

53% rye, 37% corn, 10% barley malt from Barton Distillery

80% rye, 10% corn, 10% barley malt from Barton Distillery"

And in 2019, the shift was complete with Act 7:

"Website Description: A blend of Straight Rye Whiskies including 95% rye, 5% barley malt from MGP and 80% rye, 20% malted rye from HWD. 

Website Description for 2019 Rendezvous Rye says that it contains 4 to 7 year old rye whiskey that is a mix of sourced and in-house distilled ryes."

As you weathered whisk(e)y fanatics can already guess, the price of the much younger rye did not go down, but rather increased. And, as Culture covers in another post, Constellation has aggressively increased the MWND outturn while raising the bottling's price.

I have no interest in tracking down a bottle of any of these Acts, but I have enjoyed the batches I've sipped (two from Act 2, and one from Act 6). So I was excited about this Midwinter taste-off in midsummer. Here are the results from the Taste Off that inspired my Google searches:

A Park City Trio

High West A Midwinter Night's Dram Act 5, Scene 8 (2017) 49.3%abv	High West A Midwinter Night's Dram Act 7, Scene 1 (2019) 49.3%abv	High West A Midwinter Night's Dram Act 8, Scene 2 (2020) 49.3%abv
Everything in the nose revolves around a middle ground between sticky sugary fortified wine and bold rye: grape jam, blueberry syrup, rye bread, fennel seed, black licorice, marzipan, and brine.	The nose is very winey (Moscatel!). Roses, cherry syrup, and grape lollipops keep the fennel seed in the background.	Raw rye in the nose, and it isn't MGP sauce. At least it's less winey. Mothballs, tar, and black licorice up front, with marzipan, grape juice, and ethanol in the back.
It's a good thing that there's a lot of high-rye rye as it keeps the port casks' sweetness from taking over the palate. Fennel seeds and honey on one level, strawberry candy and grape candy down below.	There's a strong orange note in the sweet palate. Then sawdust and ginger. Tart apples and dash of salt. Not much in the way of that fennel seed note.	Again the wine is mellow in the palate. It's very peppery and spicy, full of loud oak and youthful rye. Tangy orange marmalade soaks into the toasted oak. As with 7:1, the sweetness isn't necessarily from the port.
It finishes with rye and sugar. Fennel seeds, lemon candy, and grape candy.	Very sweet on this finish. Orange candy, lemon candy, ginger candy, tart apples, and tannins.	The finish is so very, very sweet. Fennel seed and tangy citrus try to break through.
Final thoughts: The port casks start to tip the scales in the finish, and it's quite sweet overall, but never too much for my grumpy palate. In fact, it's the least sweet of the three. The ABV works perfectly on this one.	Final thoughts: This is a very different whiskey, and I don't think the port casks are driving all the sweetness. It's as if the spirit itself has been dosed with refined sugar. The orange note is the only thing keeping this from dipping into the 70s.	Final thoughts: I like this more brutal take on The Dram, until the finish strikes. The spirit's volume is cranked up, while the port is toned down, something I do support. But this is soooooo sugary. I'm struggling to find any MGP in here.
Rating: 84	Rating: 80	Rating: 82

WORDS WORDS WORDS

By the end of this lineup, I had my phone out, trying to discern what's going on with the changing spirit. As noted in the intro, Act 5 was the last one with the original recipe, without High West's spirit. Act 7, was the first act with no old Barton rye ingredients, and theoretically Act 8 was the same. My Kravy senses tell me that Act 8 had the most High West rye in it. Though 8 feels like the youngest of the three, I know my way around young MGP rye better than any other American spirit, and there's not much to be found in 8:2.

Five years ago, I'd already noticed how much sweeter Act 6 was than Act 2, and that was the Act that introduced the High West spirit to the recipe. The trend appears to have increased in Act 7 and 8, which leaves me uninterested in Acts 9, 10, and 11.

In fact, you won't find me supporting High West in general, now that David Perkins is no longer at the till, and yet another corporation is charging more for less. The market offers plenty of options for me to obtain a bottle of Indiana's rye if needed. You may want to explore those as well.