Style: Small Batch Bourbon Whiskey
Age: 6 years
Proof: 100
Region: Vermont, Indiana
WhistlePig is a whiskey company best known for its forging its own path. Founded by Raj Bhakta in 2008, the brand got its start by sourcing deeply matured Canadian rye whiskey at a time when the category was quite overlooked. WhistlePig’s rye whiskeys helped to elevate the category to the point where bottles were fetched for prices normally seen only in premium bourbon and Scotch.
After breathing life into the rye whiskey category, the Vermont-based brand has just released a companion for their 6-year-old PiggyBack Rye in their first small batch PiggyBack Bourbon. According to the label, this whiskey was distilled in both Indiana and Vermont, which would lead one to guess it’s a combination of sourced MGP bourbon with WhistlePig’s own distillate. Does this bourbon hold up to the same standards as WhistlePig’s rye whiskeys? Find out below.
Tasting Notes
The aroma of this whiskey is unmistakably bourbon – notes of brown sugar, and honey fill the nose and are bolstered by a hint of vanilla, caramel, and baking spice.
The palate is a bit more grain-forward than one might expect from a 6-year-old bourbon. It doesn’t necessarily taste under-aged, but there’s an unmistakable presence of pie dough and vanilla wafer. It’s very sweet on the palate in a way that evokes both brown sugar and maple syrup. There’s also a noticeable herbal bite that hits somewhere between spearmint and dill.
The finish adds a needed complexity with a burst of cinnamon and nutmeg and a lingering maple sweetness that carries through the entire tasting experience.
Final Thoughts
This is a perfectly adequate bourbon whiskey. For its proof, WhistlePig’s PiggyBack bourbon drinks extremely smoothly. It’s sweet and has a lot of pleasant notes of maple, brown sugar, and baking spice across the entire tasting experience, but outside of an unexpected herbal note, most serious bourbon drinkers are likely to find this whiskey lacking complexity and underwhelming at its price point. For fans of WhistlePig’s other whiskeys, it does work well as a counterpart to the PiggyBack rye. There is a common throughline of herbal tea, cinnamon, and brown sugar.
At 100 proof, this PiggyBack bourbon makes an excellent old fashioned, and replacing the regular amount of sugar with a splash of maple syrup doubles down on the syrupy flavor of the whiskey. The high proof and prominent sweetness are attributes that would make it work well in almost bourbon-based cocktails. For hardcore bourbon nerds who prefer their spirits neat, this likely won’t be blowing any minds, but for those seeking an approachable sipper and a solid mixer, this bottle will do the trick.
