Lovely Pour, Amazing Manhattan — Peerless Toasted Rye at The Brothers

Met this bottle twice. First in a Manhattan the Sunday before. Then neat the next Sunday — the last pour in the decanter, with Steve setting the empty on the stainless like a receipt.

Kentucky Peerless Toasted Rye Whiskey. Batch 2. 109.0 proof. 54.50 percent ABV. Kentucky Straight Rye, finished in lightly toasted barrels. Corky Taylor’s signature embossed across the shoulder of the bottle — the family signs every release, and the bottle is the receipt.

First pour — the week before, in a Perfect Manhattan

The Hound met this bottle the Sunday before, in a Perfect Manhattan. Equal-parts sweet and dry vermouth, two dashes of bitters, lemon peel expressed and dropped, served over one large rock — the way a Manhattan is supposed to be built when the rye underneath has something to say.

Peerless Toasted Rye had something to say.

Some readers will call this overkill. A 109-proof toasted rye, non-chill-filtered, sweet-mash, Taylor-family signature on the shoulder — built into a Manhattan instead of taken neat. The conventional wisdom says you do not put a bottle this nice into a cocktail. The conventional wisdom is wrong. A Manhattan is not a hiding place for cheap rye. A Manhattan is a frame, and the better the rye, the better the picture.

For readers who have not been around long — the Manhattan is the Hound’s standard drink. Has been for years. It was the Manhattan that turned into a passion for bourbon and whiskey in the first place. The cocktail came first. The curiosity about what was underneath the cocktail came second. The shelf of bottles came third. Every neat pour the Hound logs in this journal traces back to a Manhattan that asked a question the Hound did not have an answer to yet.

The toasted-barrel finish changes the geometry of a Manhattan. A standard rye Manhattan leans dry and spicy — pepper, dill, a thin line of grassy heat. The toasted finish on this one pulled the cocktail toward dessert without tipping it over. The caramelized-brown-sugar note from the toast layered onto the sweet vermouth and stretched. The bitters cut a clean line through it. The lemon peel kept the whole thing from getting heavy.

The large rock is non-negotiable. Crushed ice would have flooded it. A standard cube would have melted faster than the cocktail held shape. The single large rock is the only way to keep a 109-proof rye Manhattan in tune for the twenty minutes it takes to drink one properly.

Second pour — Sunday, neat, in the Glencairn, the last one in the bottle

A week later. Same bar. Steve walked the bottle over, tipped it into the Glencairn, and the bottle ran dry on the way down. The last pour. The Hound finished it. Steve set the empty decanter on the stainless next to the glass like a receipt. No water. No ice.

The nose opens with toasted oak — not the wet-oak nose of a heavy bourbon, but the dry, almost-coffee oak you get when a barrel has been char-toasted rather than just charred. Caramelized brown sugar sits underneath. The palate brings baking spice — cinnamon-adjacent, nutmeg-adjacent, neither one fully — and a soft cherry note that does not announce itself the way a sherry-finish bourbon would. The finish goes long and warm. Not hot. Warm.

This is what a finished rye is supposed to do — extend the conversation without changing the language.

Who Peerless is

Kentucky Peerless is the Taylor family operation in Louisville. Corky and Carson Taylor revived a distillery their great-great-grandfather Henry Kraver ran in Henderson, Kentucky from 1889 until Prohibition shut it down. They opened the new Louisville site in 2015 and made rye their first release. Bourbon followed. Everything they make is sweet-mash — fresh start every fermentation, no sour-mash backset — and non-chill-filtered. Both choices show up in the glass. The mouthfeel is fuller than the proof would predict, and the flavor is not stripped of the heavy fats that chill-filtration removes.

Batch 2 of the Toasted Rye is the second release in this line. The first batch sold out in a window measured in hours.

What it is worth

Peerless Toasted Rye runs roughly $100 to $130 at retail when you find it. The base Peerless Rye runs $80 to $90. Both bottles tend to disappear from Kentucky shelves within a week of arrival and from out-of-state shelves within a day. If you see one in St. Louis, do not assume it will be there tomorrow.

If you do not want to chase a bottle and you want to taste it instead — the Brothers pour is done. The Hound finished the bottle on Sunday. Steve will get more when he can. Watch the bar, or call before driving.

The verdict

The Manhattan was the better surprise. The neat pour was the better confirmation. The toasted-barrel finish is the kind of thing that reads as a marketing exercise on the label and reads as a real choice in the glass. The Hound has had finished ryes that tasted like the cooper got involved too late. This one tastes like the cooper got involved at the right time.

The photo on this entry is the empty decanter. Truth in advertising. The bottle is done.

Buy when seen. Manhattan with a large rock, or neat in a Glencairn — the answer depends on weather and company. Both work.

— The Hound

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Disclosure: Both pours at The Brothers Beer & Bourbon House. The Hound paid for both. No promotional consideration from Kentucky Peerless or The Brothers.