WhistlePig's New Super-Aged Single Malt Whiskey To Sell For $799 A Bottle
WhistlePig has been disruptive since its inception. Founded in 2007, when Master Distiller Dave Pickerell departed from Maker's Mark, WhistlePig was rye-focused, intending to explore what they dubbed "America's original drink." Surprisingly, that very first batch of 10-year-old rye that Pickerell purchased came not from the United States, but from a somewhat unexpected location. Dave found the best Monongahela-style rye he'd ever tasted in, of all places, Alberta, Canada.
Now nestled in a renovated dairy farm in remote Shoreham, Vermont, WhistlePig is still rye-focused, distilling and bottling their own estate rye whiskey and producing innovative packages like PiggyBank Rye, which comes in a pig-shaped glass decanter, with the rye poured from the pig's rear end.
So what's the newest rye from WhistlePig? Well, it's not rye at all. In a press release sent to Tasting Table, WhistlePig explains, it's "a whiskey so rare and so fanciful it makes unicorns seem quaint by comparison."
WhistlePig's The Béhôlden is a 21-year-old single malt
The Béhôlden is quite a departure for WhistlePig. Retailing at $799, the single malt, 100% barley whiskey is a nod to Scotland, though distilled in North America. Aged for 21 long years, the single malt was finished in WhistlePig rye barrels, and the whiskey is reported to display complex notes of maple, dried fruit, nuts, smoke, and spice.
WhistlePig The Béhôlden will release this spring, in a lot of 18 barrels, each barrel released separately, making the whiskey a single-barrel single malt. Bottled at 92 proof, The Béhôlden will be available in select retail stores and at the WhistlePig online store. Billed as "the next step of WhistlePig's whiskey rebellion," collectors are likely to scramble for a bottle to nestle next to WhistlePig's Boss Hog collection. The rebellious team at WhistlePig headed up by Chief Blender, Meghan Ireland, and Director of Whiskey Operations, Liz Rhoades, continues to disrupt the whiskey world, one oink at a time.
Wondering if the new WhistlePig bottle is worth its hefty price? Check out our The Béhôlden review.