One state where a whiskey industry seems to be growing fast is Texas, something of which I can personally speak to since a fair number of micro distillery bottles in my personal collection come from there. One of the latest is from San Antonio based Ranger Creek Brewing & Distilling and it comes in the form of a small batch rye.
.44 Texas Rye is part of Ranger Creek’s Small Caliber Series, in which each bottling is named after a firearm. This rye’s namesake is the powerful Walker Colt of the 1840s. While it is still a little hard to dot the connection between this gun’s history and why the rye was named after it, having a cool name certainly can’t hurt.
Ranger Creek said .44 Texas Rye was aged in used bourbon barrels, though it itself is a 100 percent rye. Tasting notes from the distillers indicate it pours “a rich gold with a nose of cinnamon, mint, and toffee. The taste is strong and compact with notes of clove and tobacco. It has a clean, warming finish with lingering notes of fresh bread crust. ”
It is available in 375 ml bottles in Texas for a price of around $30 to $35.