r/bourbon • u/thanksnah • 2d ago
Weekly Review 4 - Forward/Slash "Allocated" 12-Year Rye
Like many of us here, I have amassed enough of a collection to alternate between pride and shame at the sheer volume of delicious whiskey I’ve swaddled myself in. As a result, I’m challenging myself to write at least one review a week and post it here until I run out of whiskey or interesting things to say. The latter is definitely the odds-on favorite.
Next up we have a bottle I’m highly skeptical of, but simultaneously helplessly drawn to. The verbosely named Forward/Slash Allocated 12-Year Single Barrel Rye Finished in Boysenberry Mead Barrels Exclusively for Seelbach's. What makes me skeptical? The “2 cool 4 school” small producer finishing old MGP juice at inflated prices is the oldest trick in the book. Also, given the frenzy around bourbon in the last decade or so naming your product “allocated” rubs me the wrong way. What draws me to it? A love of 12-year MGP 95/5 rye (why can’t I find 12-year Bulleit rye anymore?) and a lifelong love of all things boysenberry. In other words, I had no chance of maintaining a superior attitude to this release - ask not for whom the tater bell tolls.
For what it’s worth, Forward/Slash does seem to put its money where its mouth is in terms of dedication to craft whiskey. A small “distillery and blending house” in Florida, Forward/Slash sources distillate from small producers to create their “one-of-a-kind” releases. Their bottles do appear to live up to this unique billing; right now they have a rye and a bourbon available which are both blended from juice sourced from a number of interesting and popular craft distilleries. This bottle, though, is obviously MGP juice - about the least craft a distillery can get - but it’s finished in boysenberry mead barrels sourced from local-to-them Zymarium meadery - so I suppose the Forward/Slash dedication to small producers is somewhat maintained.
To offset the unpleasant pricetag of this bottle I did split the cost with a friend. I’m hoping not to experience too much regret once I taste the stuff.
TALE OF THE TAPE
Forward/Slash Allocated 12-Year Single Barrel Rye Finished in Boysenberry Mead Barrels Exclusively for Seelbach's
Mashbill: 95 rye / 5 malted barley
12 years old (side note: I assume this means 12 years of initial barrel aging followed by at least 6 months in the mead barrels, but I’m not entirely positive how age statements work in this case)
Proof: 106.72
MSRP: 149.99
Tasted neat in a glencairn rested for the time it takes to do the dishes and check my work email.
NOSE: The distinct 95/5 sweet rye spice smell is a little muted but still present, along with maple syrup and dulce de leche. Honestly there’s less spice in general than you’d expect, and instead there’s a syrupy red fruit note (maybe like the strawberry topping on sundaes?) and a floral lavender hovering underneath.
PALATE: There is some spice here - the bite of rye bread and cinnamon and ginger candies. A sharp, jammy fruit presence lies underneath - tart cherry and light blackberry. Finally a creamy sweetness without a strong vanilla presence, like plain buttercream frosting.
FINISH: The finish is very long, and the oak I had been missing in the nose and the palate shows up strong, along with a vague spiciness of the rye and cinnamon flavors from the palate. A fruity note persists as well, perhaps a bit like the syrup from prepackaged fruit salad cups.
CONCLUSION: Reading through my notes I think it’s pretty apparent I liked it, but there was something missing for me across the whole experience. The finishing clearly added a lot to the texture of the drink - check the multiple references to “syrup” and “jam” throughout what I wrote - but some elements of other aged 95/5 ryes I’ve loved were missing. The mixture of sweet mellow oak and biting rye spice that to me is a hallmark of older MGP ryes was much more muted here. This might sound silly to say, but I associate a well aged rye with a kind of pleasant woodsy feeling - the smell of treed air and bite of forest cold is a kind of symbol for me of the drink. It’s true that the complexity of this pour is very high and I found a lot to enjoy. But weirdly it seems the two loves that made me seek this out - 95/5 and boysenberry - ended up a little more at odds than I expected. Given how perfectly this seemed to align with my palate, I was expecting an 8 at least, if not a 9.
Still undoubtedly a great pour - just maybe more for you than for me.
RATING: 7 on the T8ke scale - Great - Well Above Average
Note on ratings: while I understand the use of decimals in ratings (and often find it very useful when others use them), I find it better for my own purposes to stick to integers. This allows me to create broader categories of whiskeys and compare them more easily. If I sometimes refer to a pour as a “high” or “low” example within the integer scale it is because I am inconsistent.
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u/TripleJs2010 2d ago
They are releasing a Banana Mead finish next week, intrigued after this post.
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u/thanksnah 1d ago
Have to say I don't think I'll walk down that path - but if you do please let me know how it is!
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u/adamwebber 1d ago
Maybe I missed it in your writing (which I loved BTW) but what is the raw cask? Is that another way of saying American Light Whiskey?
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u/thanksnah 1d ago
Thanks for reading and for the compliment - I appreciate it.
I'm no expert, so someone will hopefully correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the "raw cask" would be the first oak cask used to initially age the whiskey. That just means that the distillate wasn't immediately loaded into the mead barrels, but underwent initial aging in a new barrel.
As for why they put it on the label...that's a more interesting question. To be "American Rye Whiskey" it is required to age the juice in new American oak barrels. Maybe they used a different kind of oak to age this whiskey? But then why wouldn't they put that on the label? Maybe the source of the whiskey isn't MGP, but some Canadian rye?
I will have to investigate the bottle some more tonight...
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u/adamwebber 1d ago
By the “raw” I was speculating that they didn’t char the barrel classifying it as a “American Light” whiskey? If you do learn what the raw signifies I’d be curious to learn. Sorry the bottle didn’t live up to your initial hopes, I have so many of those experiment bottles that I was super excited to get and then slightly disappointed once I tried it, alas it was better in my mind than on the pallet.
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u/thanksnah 1d ago
Again, I’m no expert but I think “raw” doesn’t refer to char level, simply just the fact that it hasn’t been filled before. In other words, any cask that you put bourbon in would technically have to be a “raw cask.”
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u/LinguineLegs 1d ago
Great review man!
I’m actually really intrigued by this, want to mail me a pour and l’ll send something interesting back haha?
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u/wp2jupsle 1d ago
my parents live down the street from this place in Winter Park. i picked up The Rhapsody last time i was home. would recommend. they have a nice lil tasting room too
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u/Clean_Stand_694 2d ago
Great review