1792 Goes Big With First Rye Whiskey and 15-Year-Old Bourbon

(Photo: Barton 1792)

On Tuesday, Barton 1792 Distillery announced the addition of two firsts to its lineup: 1792 Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey, the brand’s debut rye, and 1792 XV, a 15-year-old bourbon that’s both the oldest release in the 1792 portfolio and the first bottled at cask strength.

1792 Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey

1792 Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey (suggested retail price: $39.99) is distilled from rye grain sourced from Canada, Europe and the northern United States, fermented with the distillery’s signature bourbon yeast. Master Distiller Ross Cornelissen says the blend was built to balance rye’s intensity with fruit-forward sweetness from the yeast, landing at 100 proof after testing showed that’s where the whiskey’s spice, oak and yeast character came together. Distillation and barrel entry proofs match 1792’s bourbon line, but the brand says the mashing and fermentation process required more precision to let the rye’s spice carry through.

We found Cornelissen’s description to be pretty accurate; it’s a total spice bomb, to be sure, but there’s a nice fruitiness here and there that adds needed balance. It’s a good entry-level rye.

Click here to read our tasting notes and review, and to see what score we gave it.

1792 XV

1792 XV ($249.99 SRP) spent 15 years in new charred American white oak before being bottled uncut and unfiltered at 124.2 proof. It’s the first release in 1792’s history bottled at cask strength. The brand emphasizes the importance of sampling individual barrels for proof and character, then testing blend combinations until the team landed on one that matched the depth they were after.

Cornelissen says the release wasn’t planned as a barrel-proof experiment. Instead, he says a handful of the distillery’s oldest barrels simply stood out enough to build a whiskey around. It’s packaged in an elongated 1-liter bottle and will be available through Global Travel Retail at LAX, SFO and South Korea’s Incheon.

It’s an impressive bourbon. Buttercream, caramel and blueberry pie on the nose, dark chocolate-covered orange peel and cherry on the palate, and a dry, tannic finish carrying cinnamon and tobacco under a wall of oak. It’s rich, thick, dense and desserty. Delicious bourbon.

Click here to read our tasting notes and review, and to see what score we gave it.

Final Impressions

Both releases are impressive in their own right. The rye is very solid for the price and has the potential to be awesome in the right cocktail. XV is going to be hard to find as a GTR exclusive, but it’s dynamite stuff — truly decadent and delicious.

Above all else, it’s just good to see something new for the 1792 brand, which we haven’t heard a whole lot from in recent years. This past September, 1792 dropped a Cognac-finished bourbon, but prior to that it had been years since we got a new release from the brand — 2019, to be precise, when 1792 Aged Twelve Years debuted.

For how big a brand 1792 is, it has felt a little bit stale. So, between these two releases and last fall’s Cognac finish, it’s great to see that the brand is trying more. Barton 1792 — Bardstown’s oldest fully-operating distillery — is a massive operation, and there’s a lot of runway here if it keeps experimenting at this level. Here’s to hoping it does.