A week or so after initial contact, and following lengthy email chains to get postage and customs forms sorted, my bottles of Dillon’s Small Batch White Rye arrived.

I get excited with every new bottle that arrives but this one had a bit of something else about it. For a start, this is not whisky, this is pre-whisky whilst we eagerly anticipate the release of their first official whisky in 2015.

The bottles themselves came shrouded in a bag printed with my name, I mean their logo marque, in a fun and fanciful font.

The brand  feels young, it feels fresh, it feels experimental, as if they are grasping their ‘small batch’ craft status by the horns and having a real go, not over promising something that will be mass produced and available all over the world, all the while having fun.

The label was one of the most comprehensive I’ve seen on a whisky in a while, although this is not technically a whisky, it is white rye (grain spirit). With brand notes, provenance stories and creation details (all valuable at the bottom of this post).

They explain the liquid as.

This purist’s rye is traditionally handcrafted from 100% Canadian grown rye but without ageing in wood, showcasing the true flavours of the grain. Like a buck before time weathers moss on his antlers, the White Rye is a 100% Canadian Rye without age in the wood. Displaying the fervent character and complexity of youthful grains without the rounding of maturity, this spirit is an intensely angst filled rye for all those who know their Smith from their Wesson, and Rye from their Whisky!

Once opened you understand why this is pre-whisky.

Both on the nose and on the pallet this White Rye is fierce, seriously fierce. It has a raw spicy passion behind every drop that I’ve only experienced when trying the unpaged spirit that comes straight from stills in various distilleries.

The after taste lasts long on the tongue with a burn that works strangely well in a nuanced Old Fashioned.

I’m quite proud of the fact I have a bottle from each of batches one and two, this really is a special liquid that I cannot wait to try the aged brother of at some time in the future.

[divider]Official Tasting Notes[/divider]

BATCH: 1

ALC./VOL.:  40%

VOLUME: 375mL, 750mL

BASE: 100% Ontario Rye

FINISHING: unoaked

MASHBILL: 10% malt, 90% unmalted

DISTILLERS NOTE: made small batch in a copper pot still to allow for pure rye notes spice sweet robustness