The Boss Hog is WhistlePig's annual statement release, and the thirteenth chapter is among the strangest and most ambitious they have made. The Golden Pharaoh takes aged straight rye from new American oak and then finishes it in barrels seasoned with Egyptian black honey and tiger nut, two ingredients with essentially no precedent in American whiskey.

Every bottle in the series comes from a single barrel and is bottled at that barrel's own strength, with no blending and no dilution. Each Golden Pharaoh bottle will carry different numbers, since the series runs across a range of barrel strengths. What that gets you is the whiskey exactly as the wood left it. The nose opens on brown sugar, cinnamon and toasted almond over dark honey and toasted oak. The palate is full bodied and commanding, layering molasses and light honey against bold rye spice, baking spice and black pepper, and it closes soft and long on toasted almond and brown sugar oatmeal.

Drink it neat, or add a few drops of water.