WhistlePig Farm The Boss Hog 5th Edition Spirit of Mauve Straight Rye Whiskey

This is the fifth edition of WhistlePig Farm's Boss Hog series, a limited edition straight rye whiskey named for Mauve, one of the farm's pet pigs. Each bottle is a single barrel release, aged in hand-selected barrels and then finished in Calvados casks, and that finish is the story here: the rye's natural spice runs alongside baked apple and pear, with cinnamon, vanilla, caramel, oak and a touch of butterscotch filling in the layers. The body is robust and full, and the finish is long and warm, with spice that keeps shifting and a subtle fruitiness left behind by the casks. It is not a first rye or a cocktail workhorse. It is a bottle for the collector or seasoned rye drinker who wants to sit with a glass neat and see how a brandy cask reshapes a spicy grain. We carry it because the Calvados finish gives it a genuinely distinct place on a shelf of rye, and because single barrel editions like this reward slow, attentive tasting.