High West unveils A Midwinter Night’s Dram Act 12
This year’s limited edition release from Utah’s High West Distillery finishes rye whiskey in a combination of Port barrels.
Constellation Brands-owned High West has released the 12th iteration of its popular A Midwinter Night’s Dram, which finishes the brand’s Rendezvous Rye expression in ruby and tawny Port barrels. The rye used is a blend of 95% rye, 5% malted barley whiskey from MGP, and 80% rye, 20% malted rye from High West.
To celebrate the release, High West held a rooftop party in downtown New York, where Olympic gold medalist and brand collaborator Shaun White was in attendance along with the brand’s director of distilling, Isaac Winter.
“Every year, Midwinters is a big exciting release for us, not only for the Salt Lake community and the whiskey community, but on site,” Winter said. “We try to keep our sensory [analysis] really tight on the core products, but when the limited’s come out, Midwinters being one of them, we like to play a little bit. This is our chance as blenders, as creators, to flex our muscles.”
A Midwinter Night’s Dram Act 12 is bottled at 49.3% ABV and priced at US$150. On the nose, it offers notes of brandied cherries, figs, and pecan cinnamon rolls, with poached white peaches, stewed rhubarb, candied ginger, and clove on the palate.
“We’re going to keep the same soul of the whiskey, but we’re going to celebrate each new vintage,” Winter said. “For Act 12, we showcased some really bright red fruit notes, which show off the ruby Port character well, whereas last year, it was a little bit spicy.”
Act 11, released last October, marked the largest release of Midwinters to date with 189,684 bottles available worldwide. High West is not disclosing bottle counts this year, but Winter notes that the brand continues to grow globally, now in 16 countries, and that he doesn’t anticipate volume increasing very much for a while.
“We’re trying now to keep that magic alive, keep the buzz around it, and then allow people to rediscover our core products,” he said.
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