Whiskey Of The Week: Old Overholt Extra Aged Cask Strength Rye

I first learned about rye whiskey in the mid ‘90s, when my twin obsessions with American history and Eisenhower-era lounge music got me to start boning up on retro cocktail recipes — many of which were made with rye. One of the first things I learned about rye was that hardly anyone drank it anymore. When I went to buy some at my neighborhood liquor store on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, they had exactly two bottles of the stuff (which was two more than a lot of other small stores carried back then). One of them was, I believe, Wild Turkey. The other sported an antiquated-looking label featuring the portrait of a dour, slightly smirking 18th or 19th century fellow (more on him later). Old Overholt, it was called. Looks authentic! I thought, and picked it up for, if I remember correctly, about $15 including tax.

Even in the ‘50s, it turned out, rye whiskey had long been in decline. It began with Prohibition shut down the distilleries in 1920, of course, and accelerated after Repeal in 1934, when tastes switched away from rye’s bold, spicy flavor to lighter Canadian whiskies, and then lighter still with vodka. I didn’t know that at the time. I also knew nothing about Old Overholt. No clue that it had been around since 1810 (it survived Prohibition by getting a license to sell its product as “medicinal whiskey”). No idea that it had been made in Pennsylvania — which had a centuries-old history of making rye — until the 1980s, when Jim Beam bought the brand and moved its base of operations to Kentucky. No idea that it had been anything other than 80 proof, which is what my bottle was. And I didn’t know that the whiskey had been aged a mere three years. Why waste good rickhouse space aging a bottom-shelf spirit that nobody drank, right?

What I did know about Old Overholt was that I loved it from first sip. Even at a low proof and a young age, it wasn’t like anything I’d ever had before — a light nutty and caramel sweetness, a little leather, a gentle but pronounced spice — and it quickly became my spirit of choice. I was a bachelor at the time, and I remember trying to impress befuddled dates by whipping them up retro rye cocktails like the Ward 8 and the Brooklyn. Whether or not I succeeded, I certainly had a ball proselytizing about the magic of rye and regaling them with tales of cocktails past.

The newest expression in Old Overholt's 210-plus year history is also its first cask-strength ... [+] bottling in eight decades.

Eventually, in the 21st century, the rye revival picked up steam, slowly at first and then a lot faster with the launch of brands like WhistlePig, a brawny, 100 proof, 100% rye whiskey that stood out in cocktails and wowed all the whiskey geeks looking for something new and exciting. As for Old Overholt, a meager promotional budget limited it to if-you-know-you-know cult status, beloved by many bartenders even if it didn’t fly off the shelves at retail. But in the last several years, Beam (now Beam Suntory), led by Bradford Lawrence, the company’s rye whiskey specialist, have taken steps to give it a more prominent spot in the rye whiskey pantheon and restore it to its former glory.

Flagship Old Overholt is now aged for four years instead of three, and bottled at 86 proof instead of 80. A bonded expression, which existed from shortly after the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897 was passed until the 1960s, was revived. Limited edition one-offs came out to woo the collectors’ market. And now comes the first cask strength Old Overholt since the 1940s. In a weird coincidence, Old Overholt Extra Aged Cask Strength Rye is bottled at exactly the same strength at the ‘40s edition, 60.5% ABV. Aged for ten years, it’s also one of the oldest of the Old Overholts released since Prohibition (an 11 year old expression saw daylight for approximately, oh, 30 seconds a few years ago).

This is not your grandparents’ Old Overholt. It’s no longer made in Pennsylvania, for one thing, and the three-chamber stills that helped impart its distinctive flavor have largely faded into history (although Todd Leopold of Leopold Bros. recently had one built and is making some amazing whiskey with it). But having tasted pre-Prohibition Old Overholt — yes, I am bragging — there’s definitely a family resemblance. The sweet, peanut brittle-and-honey notes are present in both old and new, along with the dry spice, hints of oak and cinnamon on the finish. The cask strength runs a little hotter and dryer than other Old Overholts, but is quite easy to drink even at such a high proof.

I’m not going to lie, I wanted to like this whiskey. But it turns out to be easy to like, ono matter how you feel about the old dude on the bottle, or whether you care about his brand’s place in whiskey history. At $99.99, it’s pretty reasonably priced for a 10 year, cask-strength rye, although given the limited supply and the secondary market, the actual price you may find it for may well be higher. Cask strength Old Overholts will, according to the brand, become a regular thing, though obviously this particular batch, laid down in 2012, is a one-time-only deal.

Oh, and I promised I’d mention the old guy on the label. It’s none other than Abraham Overholt, the man who started the ball rolling for the brand back in 1810. For decades his grumpy, frowning countenance graced Old Overholt’s bottles. According to Bradford Lawrence, in the 1960s, with brown spirits in general and rye whiskey in particular in eclipse, the decision was made to give Grumpy Abe a makeover and soften his glare somewhat. By the time I bought my first bottle, Abe looked benign, almost paternal, if not exactly happy. But with the restoration of the whiskey came the restoration of Grumpy Abe, who once again looks as sour as he did more than a century ago. Hey, he seems to glare across the centuries, making great whiskey isn’t all fun and games, you know.