Dancing Goat Limousin Rye Finished in Cherry Bitters Barrels

COST: $60 for 750 mL bottle via r/Bourbon single barrel program (I’m reviewing a sample)

AGE: 7 years

MASH BILL: 95% rye, 5% malted barley

PROOF: 111.2

I passed on purchasing a bottle of this twice and I’ve always had a little regret about that. But a fellow r/bourbon single barrel program fan offered me a sample to check it out, so, lets see if this is going to be an instant buy next time one comes available or if I may pass on it again.

Reviewed neat in a Glencairn

APPEARANCE: Deep, orange amber (1.3), medium thickness, slow legs.

NOSE: Cherry extract just completely dominates the nose. Spearmint, rye spice, and Hot Tamales candy also play a big role. A little more subdued, but there is a charred cedar note that I can pick up with a deep whiff.

PALATE: This has a silky-smooth mouthfeel. The cherry flavor comes across as a cherry candy. If you’ve every had “cherry sours,” it’s kinda like that but without the tart note – there’s something artificially sweet but delicious about that fake cherry flavoring, and this has that. At times, it’s also akin to a medicinal cherry note. The sweet cherry on the front end gives way to more herbal and earthy notes that I associate with a 95/5 rye whiskey towards the backend: cinnamon, anise, mint, a little grassy, and a little toasted oak.

FINISH: There is a combination of cherry and marzipan that is going on in the finish that is like…chef’s kiss perfect! In addition, there’s notes of mint and licorice, a dusting of cinnamon, and light toasted oak. The finish is long and very unique. Nothing about the cherry sweetness here seems artificial.

RATING: 7.9/10

VALUE: 9.0/10 (this value is based on a ratio of the $/mL to the rating above compared to this same ratio for all other r/Bourbon reviews I’ve made and normalized to 10)

OVERALL: I really, REALLY wish I had more of this to use in an Old Fashioned. There’s no question in my mind it would make a completely killer Old Fashioned! The nose and finish on this were both very unique and complex. The palate was also very unique and complex, but the cherry notes coming across, while still sweet and candy like, came across as more artificial in nature and gave this a bit of a hit as I would prefer a fresh, ripe cherry note. That said, I will still be looking to add the next r/Bourbon offering of this to my bar, because like I said, this would make an absolutely killer Old Fashioned!

BEHIND THE BOTTLE

Dancing Goat has been making a lot of different bitters cask finished ryes the last few years, a lot (all?) of which have been offered through the r/Bourbon single barrel program. Others have certainly sounded intriguing, but none more than this cherry bitters one because I’m such a sucker for cherries.

I learned something new here – bitters can be cask aged. I knew that bitters were basically extracts where botanicals, spices, or fruits are basically added to a high alcohol liquid to preserve them and create a highly concentrated flavor of the featured additive. What I never realized is they can be barrel aged just like any other alcohol, though I’m not sure how common this is. Regardless, Dancing Goat has clearly found a source for bitters casks and they’re doing something that I’ve yet to see anyone else do, and creating expressions unlike anything I’ve ever tried before in the process.

For this expression, Dancing Goat is using a MGP 95/5 rye whiskey that has been aged for about 6 years and 9 months in French Limousin oak and then aged it for an additional 3 months in a cherry bitters cask, giving it a total of 7 years aged. For any barrel finished whiskey, I generally look for something finished for at least 6 months because to me, anything less and the whiskey in the barrel isn’t seeing enough time to see the seasonal cycling of the cask fully impart the cask’s characteristic into the whiskey. However, bitters are POTENT! So, it’s not surprising to me that 3 months was more than enough time to fully impart that cherry bitters profile. I honestly think that this could benefit from a little less time spent in the finishing cask because of how dominant the cherry notes are; additionally, a little less time may make the cherry note on the palate more subtle and less artificial as it came across to me.

1 | Disgusting | ...I've not subjected myself to this level

2 | Poor | Balcones Lineage

3 | Bad | High West Double Rye, Jefferson's Ocean 28

4 | Sub-par | Weller's SR, Woodford Reserve Distiller's Select

5 | Good | Buffalo Trace, Sazerac Rye, Green River Wheated

6 | Very Good | Blanton's, Holladay Bourbons, Widow Jane Decadence

7 | Great | Baker's 7yr SiB, WhistlePig PiggyBack SiB, 1792 BiB

8 | Excellent | Most ECBP batches, JD SiB BiB, High West MWND Act 11

9 | Incredible | Barrel Bourbon Batch T8ke, BBC DS #7, Four Roses OESQ

10 | Perfect | Found North Batch 08

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