Hudson Rye, Castle & Key Wheated Bourbon, Uncle Nearest, Larceny, and more [New Releases]

Who doesn’t like apples? The ripe, luscious peach is now a distant memory of summer, and so it’s apple season—meaning fresh apples, apple pie, and perhaps even a warm spicy rye finished in apple brandy casks. Hudson Rye Calvados Cask Finish is 7 year old whiskey first aged in new oak before a long, secondary maturation in calvados casks from Normandy, France.

Meanwhile, we're pleased to see that Castle & Key is out with another branded expression, this one a wheated bourbon. We all were very excited when restoration began on this historic distillery back in 2014, forgetting that the process would take a while. In the ensuing years, Castle & Key was relying exclusively on contract distilling, but its first whiskey under the Castle & Key name finally appeared in 2022. Slowly but surely, Castle & Key is starting to develop a true portfolio of expressions.

Uncle Nearest, having already built a successful brand along with a sprawling whiskey distillery and visitor attraction in Shelbyville Tennessee—all since 2016—is now out with a new, price-friendly label, a welcome sight in these days of sky-high pricing and limited editions. Elsewhere, Larceny arrives with its final batch of the year, Batch C924, on the heels of sister brand Elijah Craig’s final 2024 release reported on last week. Old Potrero weighs in with two wine cask-finished ryes, while Hirsch offers two limited-release single barrel bourbons. And from Denmark, Stauning Distillery has a U.S. exclusive, a cask-strength version of its sherry cask-finished rye. There is lots more, so read on.

Hudson New York Rye Calvados Cask Finish

ABV: 46%
SRP: $70
Availability: Nationwide

Hudson Whiskey’s latest rye is among its more mature releases, coming in at 7 years old. For the first half of its life, the whiskey, which is crafted from a mashbill of 95% rye and 5% malted barley, aged in new oak; the second half of its life was spent in calvados casks from Normandy, France. According to master blender Brian Kinsman, the whiskey’s finish is a nod to New York State’s apple associations—the city is affectionately known as the Big Apple, and there are a great many orchards peppered across the Hudson Valley.

Hudson’s home, Tuthilltown Distillery, has slowly but surely been releasing more aged whiskeys as of late; in 2021, the distillery released a 7 year old four-grain bourbon, and last year, it released a 4 year old straight bourbon. This is the oldest rye in the brand’s stable.

Castle & Key Cask 7 year old Cask Strength Wheated Bourbon

ABV: 52.8%
SRP: $60
Availability: 23 states

Frankfort, Kentucky-based Castle & Key is celebrating its 10th anniversary with its second-ever wheated bourbon. It has a mashbill of 73% white corn, 10% white winter wheat, and 17% malted barley, and is bottled at cask strength. It was blended from barrels produced during the distillery’s first production year and has a 7 year old age statement.

Much of Castle & Key Distillery’s history is intertwined with The Old Taylor Distillery, which has an interesting story of its own. Old Taylor was first founded in 1887 by Col. Edmund Hayes Taylor—yes, that E.H. Taylor—who in 1887 built a palatial distillery that would be a whiskey showcase like no other. It was a medieval stone castle, complete with reflecting pools, a gazebo, a blooming garden, stone bridges, towers, and crenelated ramparts. A special rail line was built to bring visitors right to the doorstep. The distillery hit its first of many production halts in 1917, due to Prohibition, and would change hands several times, eventually ending up in the hands of Jim Beam. In the mid-2000s, Old Taylor was mothballed and fell into a state of disrepair. The Old Taylor ruins were purchased by a lawyer named Will Arvin in 2014, who renamed the distillery Castle & Key and began restoring it to its former glory.

In keeping with Taylor’s vision, the modern Castle & Key is still very much a tourist destination—its 113-acre campus is flecked with attractions like the eponymous castle and keyhole-shaped springhouse, Boiler Room retail store, and railway-inspired Taylorton Station bar. The distillery produces several whiskeys and a handful of white spirits. It is also prominent in the contract distillation space, with its distillate featured in bottlings from Widow Jane and Pinhook among others.

Nearest Green Tennessee Whiskey

ABV: 42%
SRP: $30
Availability: Limited

Many distillers have thrown their chips behind high-strength whiskeys in recent times, releasing cask-strength expressions bottled at higher proof points. While Tennessee whiskey brand Uncle Nearest has certainly released a lot of higher-end expressions, with this release it takes a different approach. The whiskey, simply called Nearest Green, is at 42% ABV—a bit lower than Uncle Nearest’s flagship, which is bottled at 46.5%.

The newcomer is meant to be an accessible option for new whiskey drinkers, with a particular focus on the bar and restaurant scene. Master blender Victoria Eady Butler crafted it with cocktails in mind, and recommends trying it in a whiskey riff on a Sidecar. The release coincides with a marketing campaign that will see Uncle Nearest team members visit bars around the country, and challenge patrons to sip Nearest Green blindly against the bar’s house bourbon.

Larceny Barrel Proof Bourbon (Batch C924)

ABV: 62.5%
SRP: $65
Availability: Nationwide

Last week, Heaven Hill unveiled the latest batch of its perennially beloved Elijah Craig Barrel Proof. Now, the distillery has a new batch for another fan favorite: Larceny Barrel Proof C924, the third and final batch for the year.

Elijah Craig Barrel Proof has been around for over a decade, but Larceny Barrel Proof is much newer, having released its first batch in 2020. It represents a blend of 6–8 year old bourbons that are bottled at natural strength. It’s made from Heaven Hill’s trademark wheated bourbon mashbill—68% corn, 20% wheat, and 12% malted barley.

Typically each Larceny Barrel Proof batch is distinguished by its proof point, which varies from release to release, but the newest batch has another notable difference. C924 sports brand-new packaging, which features a redesigned label and eschews the classic black wrapper in favor of a copper-colored one. The new label includes the tale of John E. Fitzgerald—the namesake of Larceny’s sister brand Old Fitzgerald—which is written in UV ink and lights up when put under a blacklight.

Old Potrero Straight Rye Finished in Silver Oak Wine Barrels

ABV: 56.6%
SRP: $100
Availability: Limited

Old Potrero Toasted Barrel Rye Finished in Sonoma Portworks Wine Barrels

ABV: 56.8%
SRP: $100
Availability: Limited

For Old Potrero’s new California Cellar Series, the brand turned to Napa and Sonoma, where it sourced red wine barrels from two separate wineries. The first whiskey, a straight malted rye, was aged for 6 years and then placed in cabernet sauvignon barrels from Napa Valley’s Silver Oak winery for 5 months. The second whiskey—a malted rye aged in toasted barrels—was matured for 5 years before being moved into Sonoma Portworks petite sirah port barrels for an additional 17 months. These releases mark the first time that San Francisco-based Old Potrero has collaborated with California wineries, and the brand notes that more such collaborations are planned for next year under its Golden State program, which will see white wine and beer barrel finishes (with the barrels coming from California producers).

Old Potrero holds the distinction of being among the oldest malted rye whiskeys in the country, having originally been introduced in 1996. Every whiskey from the brand, which is produced at Hotaling & Co. Distillery by master blender Bruce Joseph, is made from a mashbill of 100% malted rye and distilled in copper pot stills.

Hirsch The Single Barrel Double Oak (3rd Edition) Bourbon

ABV: Varies
SRP: $135
Availability: Limited

Hirsch The Single Barrel Silver (4th Edition) Bourbon

ABV: Varies
SRP: $90
Availability: Limited

It’s a busy month for Hotaling & Co., which is not just adding to its Old Potrero malted rye brand, but its Hirsch bourbon label as well. As with the Old Potrero releases, the new Hirsch whiskeys are limited editions, these being single barrel bourbons.

Only 21 barrels of The Double Oak are available, and there are two different age statements to choose from in this third edition: a 10 year old, and a 9 year old. Both iterations are made from a mash of 72% corn, 13% rye, and 15% malted barley, and aged for 8 years in oak barrels air-seasoned for 12 months and charred to level No. 3. Nineteen of the barrels were finished for 2 years in oak barrels at char level No.1; the remaining two were aged for one additional year in the same char level No. 1 barrels. The whiskeys range from 55% to 57.5% ABV.

For the fourth edition of The Single Barrel Silver, head blender Kevin Aslan worked with two mashbills, as opposed to two age statements—the first mashbill is comprised of 72% corn, 13% rye, and 15% malted barley, while the second is made from 78% corn, 10% rye, and 12% malted barley. Both whiskeys aged for 6 years, and range from 52.5% ABV to 63% ABV. At 42 barrels, there is more of this whiskey available than its Double Oak counterpart.

Town Branch Imperium MMXXIV Kentucky Straight Bourbon

ABV: 48%
SRP: $120
Availability: Limited

Set to be a new annual release from here on out, Town Branch Imperium MMXXIV is a wheated bourbon that features the cream of the distillery’s crop. As the distillery has waited for its wheated bourbon mashbill—comprised of 70% corn, 22% wheat, and 8% malted barley—to come of age, it’s featured the liquid in other releases; Town Branch’s recently launched Overproof bourbon, for example, contains a percentage of the wheater. Imperium makes use of the finest barrels of aging wheated bourbon Town Branch has on hand, as well as the best of the distillery’s flagship Kentucky straight bourbon (72% corn, 15% rye, and 13% malted barley), blending the two together in a 50-50 split. The oldest whiskeys in the blend are 8 years old, and the youngest come in at 6 years.

Each Imperium release will be a blend of six to ten barrels, and it’ll be named according to the Roman numerals of the release year. This year’s release is a blend of six barrels, making it quite limited.

Rampur Barrel Blush Indian Single Malt

ABV: 45%
SRP: $105
Availability: U.S., UK, and Europe; imported by SG Worldwide

Barrel Blush, Rampur Distillery’s latest whisky creation, is a non-age statement Indian single malt initially matured in American oak casks and finished in Australian shiraz wine casks.

Rampur has expanded its core range and limited editions through cask finishing, most notably on the Indian cabernet sauvignon cask finished Rampur Asava, the No.7 whisky in the Whisky Advocate Top 20 of 2021. While red wine cask-finished whiskies are quite common, shiraz casks are a relatively rare finishing vessel. Outside of Australia, they have been used by Teeling, Dingle, and the Carpathian Distillery among others.

Stauning Rye Whisky Sherry Cask Finish

ABV: 50.5%
SRP: $75
Availability: 800 bottles; U.S. exclusive; online only

Denmark’s Stauning Distillery has released a limited-edition cask strength version of its Danish rye whisky finished in Pedro Ximénez and palo cortado Spanish sherry casks. The whisky was made from local barley and rye floor-malted at the distillery. It was double-distilled in Stauning’s squat direct-fired pot stills and initially matured in heavily charred new American white oak casks before being finished in sherry casks. Three casks were selected for the final bottling, which marks Stauning’s first-ever U.S.-exclusive release.

A leading Nordic whisky producer, Stauning opened its purpose-built distillery in 2018 following investment from drinks accelerator Distill Ventures (DV) in 2014: it is currently the only Nordic whisky distillery in the DV portfolio.