Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Food & Drink

Rhetoric 25-Year-Old Bourbon Whiskey is On Its Way

Sam Slaughter
By

Have a whiskey lover in your life? Or perhaps you the whiskey lover? Well, you might want to use some persuasive speaking and writing to get your loved ones to search out a bottle of this whiskey during the coming holiday season.

Annually for the past five years, the Orphan Barrel Whiskey Distilling Company has released a super-aged bourbon released under the name Rhetoric. Starting with Rhetoric 20, the distillery has held a small number of barrels every year since, releasing progressively older expressions. This year, Orphan Barrel is once again releasing a whiskey — aged 25 years this time — but it’s also announced that this will be the last Rhetoric release.

Recommended Videos

See why we said persuasive speaking and writing now? That’s an English joke for you. Is freshman year English class coming back to haunt you yet?

Orphan Barrel Whiskey Distilling Company Rhetoric 25
Orphan Barrel Whiskey Distilling Company

As with the previous editions, Rhetoric 25’s whiskey was found in the old Stitzel-Weller Warehouses in Louisville, Ky. The whiskey was distilled (between 1990- 1993) at the Bernheim Distillery (which was historically located at 17th and Breckenridge in Louisville) from a mash of 86 percent corn, 8 percent barley, and 6 percent rye. The whiskey used was then hand-bottled in Tullahoma, Tennessee (most likely at the George Dickel Distillery, as both are owned by Diageo).

Related

On the nose, Rhetoric displays oak, with vanilla, dried fruit, cherries, and some spice coming to the forefront as well. The palate is also oak-forward, with baking spices, caramel, some muted sweet corn, and dark chocolate coming through. The finish warms all the way down. At 45.5 percent alcohol by volume, it is the strongest of the Rhetoric releases (each has gone up .1 percent in alcohol, starting with Rhetoric 20, which was 45 percent ABV). Just as the proof has gone up year after year, the color of wood texture in the label has gotten dark, representing the whiskey itself getting darker in color with every subsequent year.

Rhetoric 25 will be sold nationwide but in extremely limited quantities. If you manage to find it, the whiskey will retail for around $140. If you can’t get a hold of any Rhetoric 25, you might still be able to find one of Orphan Barrel’s other releases, such as Forged Oak, Lost Prophet, Barterhouse, or The Gifted Horse.

Then, if you can’t find any of those, why not try picking up a bottle of something like Fistful of Whiskey?

Editors' Recommendations

Sam Slaughter
Sam Slaughter
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Sam Slaughter was the Food and Drink Editor for The Manual. Born and raised in New Jersey, he’s called the South home for…
Bourbon vs. Whiskey: Sibling but Separate Spirits
A trio of whiskies

If you're confusing your whiskey and bourbon, you're not alone. The drinks industry is full of little nuances, often born of geography and different ingredients and materials available. Just ask the vast categories of sparkling wine (Champagne or Prosecco?), IPA (hazy or west coast?), and brandy (cognac or Armagnac?). They're full of sub-categories, stylistic tweaks, and ongoing riffs.

Related Reading

Read more
Hudson Whiskey Relaunches with New Look, New Whiskey
hudson whiskey relaunch 1

Hudson Whiskey was one of the brands at the forefront of the American craft whiskey movement. The distillery behind it, Tuthilltown Spirits, was the first distillery in New York State to operate since Prohibition when it launched back in 2003. The distillery has gone through some changes since those early days, the biggest being the 2010 acquisition  of the Hudson Whiskey brand by beverage conglomerate William Grant & Sons (owner of well known brands like Glenfiddich, The Balvenie, and Sailor Jerry), followed by the overall acquisition of the distillery in 2017. Things have been relatively quiet from Tuthilltown since then, but the distillery revealed some big news in recent days. The label design and the liquid found within the bottle has undergone a significant relaunch, focusing on its role as a true representative of the New York craft whiskey scene, along with a price shift that should please consumers.

The new names of the whiskeys are all nods to iconic New York  cultural institutions including films and food. Baby Bourbon is now called Bright Lights, Big Bourbon. The mash bill is 95% corn and 5% malted barley, unique for bourbon in that no flavoring grain like rye or wheat is used. The whiskey is aged for longer than it used to be, or a minimum of three years according to the brand. Manhattan Rye is now called Do The Rye Thing, which should please Spike Lee fans. As a complement to the bourbon, the mash bill is 95% rye and 5% malted barley, similar to the ubiquitous MGP formula. This whiskey is also now aged for a minimum of three years and is certified as an Empire Rye, meaning it meets certain requirements like 75% of the mash must be New York-state grown rye. Also, Maple Cask Rye is now called Short Stack, and the distillery has unveiled a brand-new whiskey called Back Room Deal. This rye is finished in barrels that originated at Tuthilltown, were then sent to Scotland to age peated scotch, and then returned to the distillery to infuse the whiskey with a bit of smoke.

Read more
Little Book Chapter 4: Lessons Honored is a Conceptual Whiskey
Little Book Chapter 4

Freddie Noe is the son of Fred Noe who's the son of Booker Noe. If you are not familiar with these names, these men are essentially bourbon royalty, with a lineage that has been part of Jim Beam and its many brand offshoots for eight generations. Booker was sort of a bourbon luminary, a larger-than-life presence who was responsible for creating the Small Batch Collection -- Basil Hayden's, Knob Creek, Baker's, and the eponymous Booker's. Fred took over as master distiller in 2007, and has been a ubiquitous presence on the road promoting Beam products and holding court at the distillery. And now his son Freddie has taken an integral role at the distillery, most prominently with his Little Book series of blended straight whiskeys. The latest release, Chapter 4: "Lessons Honored," is an homage to his dad and the things he's taught him over the years, and it's really an excellent example of a conceptual whiskey that delivers in flavor as much as it does in ideas.

Like all the past chapters, this fourth installment is a blended straight whiskey (no neutral grain spirits here, folks). The components in this edition are: a 4-year-old Kentucky straight brown rice bourbon, an 8-year-old Kentucky straight "high rye" rye whiskey, and a 7-year-old Kentucky straight bourbon. I had a chance to taste through the components and the final product with Freddie a few weeks ago, and he had a lot to say about picking these particular whiskeys. The brown rice bourbon is the base of the blend, and on its own it really stands out from other Beam-distilled whiskeys. Freddie said that rice is a soft grain to work with, containing lots of starch, and it converts well. The resulting whiskey drinks beyond its four years, with dry spice and an underlying flavor that's almost like a sherry cask finish. The next largest component is the 7-year-old bourbon, which is actually a younger, cask strength version of Knob Creek. Freddie brought Knob Creek aged between seven and nine years to his dad for a blind tasting, and the elder Noe chose this one. There's a touch of astringency in this liquid, but it's still got those deep vanilla and caramel notes that make up Knob Creek. Finally, the last whiskey in the blend is a "higher rye" rye. At about 65% rye, that's definitely more of the grain in the mash bill than other Beam rye whiskeys. According to Freddie, this whiskey was made using the same mash bill as Booker's Rye, but he said it really hasn't been used for any Beam products before this Little Book release.

Read more