Blackened X Willett Kentucky Straight Rye Whisky

The “Masters of Whiskey Series” was born from the core tenet of BLACKENED American Whiskey and Metallica collaboration. This series combines strengths of Master Distiller and Blender Rob Dietrich and renowned whiskey makers to re-imagine craft whiskey and create more complex expressions. Each of these limited edition whiskies are finished to their own unique playlist which is blasted to the barrels using BLACKENED’s proprietary BLACK NOISE sonic enhancement process. For the first release in the series, Rob Dietrich and Willett Distillery’s own Master Distiller, Drew Kulsveen, teamed up to create the BLACKENED X Willett Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey Finished in Madeira Casks. BLACKENED x Willett Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey was curated with an in-house marriage of Kentucky high rye and low rye recipes that were hand-selected by both Rob and Drew from Willett Distillery’s Family Estate Selection. The high rye whiskey offers spicier, more robust notes like fresh-cut hay and walnut, while the low rye features a slightly sweeter, earthier taste, such as cinnamon, mint and honey. Drew and Rob naturally gravitated towards these two recipes for a balanced flavor, smoothed out by the whiskey’s collective age statements and cask finishing. The oldest whiskey features an age statement of 8 years, while the average age of the bottling is 6 ½ years. The whiskies are then married together and finished in Madeira Casks for up to 14 weeks, imparting subtle fruity notes, honey overtones and hints of raspberry. During that time, the whiskey undergoes the proprietary BLACK NOISE sonic enhancement process that uses the low hertz frequencies from Metallica’s music to vibrate the barrels, causing a greater interaction between the whiskey and the wood, forcing the liquid further into the barrel and extracting more flavor and color. Tasting Notes: Sweet-simmered rhubarb and brown sugar butter, corn husk, vanilla bean, cigar box and ripe fig on the nose. A mouth-warming symmetry of buttery caramel & earthy mint on the palate, with a degree of raspberry sweetness from the Madeira cask-finish, balancing with the rustic notes of fresh cut hay from the high rye and rolling into a white pepper, cinnamon butter & walnut finish.