When it comes to Vermont’s WhistlePig, I’ve had some rather conflicted feelings as of late. In the last few years, the company has increasingly moved its attention into other facets of the alcohol industry, not always with much success. There was the non-alcoholic rye whiskey, an idea better on the page than in practice. And then there was the lineup of PiggyBack canned cocktails, which I found inherently deceptive, given that they didn’t actually contain any of the brand’s famous rye whiskey, despite having the brand name of that rye whiskey emblazoned across them. When I’ve thought about WhistlePig recently, it’s often been in the context of feeling as if the brand had gotten a bit too far from its roots.
And the thing is, they’re really good roots. The core WhistlePig product has always been one of my favorite rye whiskeys, and they’ve made some of the best extra-aged rye whiskeys on the market over the years. Their price points always caught some attention, but as inflation took its toll and the entire industry premiumized, WhistlePig’s products actually seemed to become a better deal, rather than a worse one. Along the way, they also began to work in their own, Vermont-grown rye distillate, without losing track of the company’s house flavor profile. Zero in on the core product lineup, and there’s still a lot to like here.
The Boss Hog series, meanwhile, is entirely its own beast. WhistlePig’s annual, ultra-luxe limited edition series is built around a philosophy of “five promises” for each edition: “you are guaranteed a stupendous and powerfully complex whiskey; single barrel in origin, bottled at proof and unique from anything you’ve ever before tasted.” For this, the consumer pays a premium beyond even what is common for the limited release whiskey world, with MSRPs in the $600 range. And with retailer price gouging being the rampant industry problem it is, that kind of MSRP starting point means you can easily browse online package stores and see unscrupulous retailers trying to score $1,500 or even $5,000 for a bottle of Boss Hog, confident that someone will eventually come along to pay it.
These are amounts of money so high as to lose all meaning, and it’s almost impossible to assign worth or value to a sample with such a price tag attached to it. So let’s focus solely on what this year’s newly revealed Boss Hog IX: Siren’s Song brings to the table on its own merits.
This ninth iteration of Boss Hog “begins with some of the oldest rye on our farm,” which one can’t help but note is not an actual age statement. This “well aged” rye whiskey then receives a very unique double finish “in barrels formerly belonging to Greek fig nectar and scratch made Tentura – a Greek style liqueur inspired by Ancient Patras.”
These cask finishes are coming from barrels crafted by WhistlePig’s own whiskey makers, Liz Rhoades and Meghan Ireland, who crafted both the fig nectar ( watch out for wasps! ) and Tentura being used. Tentura, meanwhile, is a spiced liqueur typically produced from Greek brandy, traditionally infused with the essence of flavorings such as clove, cinnamon, nutmeg and citrus fruits. Which is all to say, we would expect Boss Hog IX: Siren’s Song to be redolent in both fruit and spice flavors.