The spirit that will be one of the distillery’s main products debuts April 14. Photo via Facebook.
Woodinville Whiskey Co. is about to debut another product that justifies the use of an alarm clock on a Saturday morning. On April 14, owners Orlin Sorensen and Brett Carlile will release a rye whiskey, being billed as the first rye produced (legally, anyway) in Washington since Prohibition.
The distillery opens at 7am on the 14th and will be selling 750mL bottles for $50, with a limit of two per person. The first 100 people who show up and stand in line will be rewarded with a Woodinville Whiskey Co. beanie, and coffee will be flowing freely.
The rye will be one of Woodinville’s core products, along with bourbon, says Sorensen. While this first batch is likely to sell out fast, other batches will be released in the coming months. The distillery released its first aged spirits, a bourbon and an American whiskey, back in November, and Sorenson says they sold the entire run of about 4,000 bottles in a few short weeks. The guys are still busy bottling, so Sorensen didn’t have any specific numbers on the rye release, but he estimates it will be about the same size.
Sorensen says the nation is also experiencing a shortage of rye whiskey—another factor that might have people lining that morning. Demand has grown exponentially in recent years, he says, “and distilleries just didn’t have any aging inventory; it was a niche product.”
These days rye is the go-to whiskey for Manhattans and a host of other craft cocktails. “I think people are gravitating toward flavor in general,” says Sorensen. “The rye has more character, more complex more flavor.”
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