A punchy, fan-favorite version of Old Overholt Rye is back for 2025. This time, it carries a dozen-year age statement—and based on an early tasting, it’s got flavor to match its pedigree.
Initially launched (well, in an historical context relaunched) in 2023, Old Overholt Cask Strength Rye is a bold, uncut homage to an older style of American whiskey. With origins tracing back to 1810, Old Overholt was originally a Pennsylvania-distilled whiskey that stands among the nation’s oldest and most beloved brands. Today, the Overholt line includes various Old Overholt expressions. Those include A. Overholt, a Pennsylvania-style rye that, like all whiskeys in the family, are currently produced by Kentucky’s James B. Beam Distilling Company.
Old Overholt Cask Strength is the top-of-the-line, premium and uncut expression keeping the name alive. That 2023 bottling clocked in at 10 years old. The 2024 version came with an 11 year age statement. And for 2025, we’ve got a 12 year old rye whiskey, originally distilled and barreled in the Spring of 2013. (While the exact recipe is undisclosed, the whiskey is believed to come from a “low-rye” Beam recipe measuring around 51% rye content.) Those barrels were aged at Beam’s Clermont, Kentucky campus across warehouses Q, R, 5, and L. This particular release features a range of proofs, running from 53-65% ABV. The bottle we tried was was 58.50% ABV, or 117 proof.
So…how does it taste?
The newest Old Overholt Cask Strength Rye is vivacious on the nose, punching well above last year’s 107.4 proof batch (and perhaps on par with 2023’s 121 proof version, though alas, we didn’t taste them side-by-side). It has some immediate similarities to a typical bourbon profile, and that “low-rye” mash bill conveys baking spice, burnt caramel, toasted hazelnuts, and vanilla extract on par with some Beam-distilled bourbons. The main exception is a perceptible (and not altogether unpleasant) herbal character, the main early sign of a majority rye component.
The palate features a one-two combo of red fruit and oak. It’s perhaps a more dark cherry-forward cask strength than its predecessors, which conveys age well alongside the predominant—but not overbearing—influence of wood. Pops of both cinnamon and dusted chocolate round out the midpalate. The back palate quickly turns to spiced apple butter, and like 2024’s batch, it gets more tannic with time as age continues to show its stripes.
Each year I try this rye, I wonder when we’ll start seeing it nudge up against the dreaded “over-oaked” territory. And thus far, each year I’m reminded we’re nowhere close. This is solid rye whiskey indeed.
The 2025 version of Old Overhold Cask Strength Rye carries a suggested retail price of $109.99, about $10 up on last year’s version.
For the real whiskey nerds out there, it’s worth noting that if Old Overholt releases continue on this path, next year’s bottling will clock in at 13 years. That’s the same age statement as the now-legendary Booker’s Rye, a 2016 release often considered one of the best whiskeys of its era. I remain eager to see if the James B. Beam Distilling Company shifts stocks to try and repeat (or commemorate) that release. I’ll be keeping an ear to the ground…