Toast Tuesday: Rye

In case you are just joining in, this year I am drinking more adventurously and following Jeff Cioletti’s book for 52 ways to get out of my comfort zone.  Since I blew my budget on week one, this time I just went with a sampling of cocktails featuring rye.

I also learned a lesson with this book.  I need to have some idea of what’s coming up next.  I accidentally jumped ahead… twice. Once was an inadvertent overlap with rye, and the other was just happenstance.

Week two is Bourbon with a splash of Rye. Since I’m less familiar with rye, that’s where I went with this. My inadvertent overlap was I got a small bottle of Crown Royal Rye; which really belongs with next week for Canadian Whiskey.

The happenstance… you’ll just have to wait and see.

Again, I took recommendations from friends in the know and hit the store. My one splurge, since after last week I’ve got to shop more wisely, was a bottle of Sazerac. It is lovely. I could sip this quite easily, but as this is a spirit that had its heyday in years long gone, I wanted to find cocktails from that era.

I made the Ward 8, the Scofflaw, and the New Orleans mainstay Sazerac. It was when I tried a “new” cocktail, the Gold Dust, that I was first disappointed, but not in the rye. I added a dash of angostura bitters and that gave it better balance, otherwise it was much too sweet.

I’m glad this spirit has made a resurgence and isn’t going extinct. One bottle I already had on my bar was a gift from a friend from a distillery from Chicago. Koval Rye. It’s a small bottle and now that it’s open, I’m not sure how long it will last. It is delicious.

We are just starting this adventure and I have a new crush.  Rye has a hint of maple, with a little…hmmm… something at the finish that just makes you want more.

Cheers to your week and see you next week for Canadian Whiskey