Very Olde St Nick 8 Year Old Ancient Cask Rye Whiskey 750ml

The Old St Nick legend has taken on a life of its own with the advent of the internet, many claiming inside information, or knowledge about who first developed the product and why, it’s original pedigree, the source of its bourbons, and the story behind the eclectic style.  The Very Olde St Nick myth is a reality with a wonderful story…in fact many stories.  As many as the infinite miniscule number of releases from this highly prized producer for more than 30 years!!

Very Old St Nick is a boutique bourbon brand owned by Allied Lomar in California, who’s other products include Rare Perfection, Wattie Boone and the Vintage Bourbon and Rye bottles. They have been sourcing bourbon and bottling it for several decades, and they are instantly recognisable from their uniform use of the same cursive script-style typeface. Allied Lomar president, Marci Palatella, was Julian Van Winkle III’s agent in the Japanese market for many years, and their early bottlings of Old St Nick were contracted to him at his Old Commonwealth distillery.

The Van Winkle partnership with in the early 2000s ended this agreement however, with the production of bottles such as this moved to Willett distillery, where they were bottled by its owners, Evan Kulsveen’s Kentucky Bourbon Distillers. The stills at Willett were silent at this point and KBD were sourcing most of their whiskey from Heaven Hill.

The Very Olde St. Nick brand continues to deliver hit after hit in the fashion of any great collectible brand. The newst edition of the Ancient Cask 8 Year Old Rye is stupendous. Golden straw in color and lusciously smooth it’s a bit of a dichotomy on the palate. It has tremendous sweetness and weight, but immense rye spice at the same time.