If you’ve read any books on how the mind works, then you are well aware that we humans are excellent at being fooled and fooling ourselves. Case in point: many of you think you aren’t improperly influenced by a name, a catchy bottle design, or the story behind a whiskey. The reality is that our expectations are nearly always set before the first sip. With people, this is often referred to as ‘The Halo Effect’, where someone’s appearance alone can significantly impact your initial impressions about their actual competence or abilities.

Given the current whiskey boom we are in, the thunder of never-ending hype joins the lightning of unprecedented scarcity in a perfect storm on social media. The deluge of photos and early reviews whip up a frenzy for whiskey hunters, who feel a real victory in an acquisition. However, the unavoidable fact is that the more prestige you attach to a bottle, the more likely you are to highlight its positive qualities. That is precisely why I am a huge proponent of tasting blind. Ironically, blind tasting helps you see more clearly.

Some of my favorite evenings in Omaha over the past several years have been spent at Spirit World’s epic tasting events, where you not only sample outstanding whiskey, but you also have the opportunity to purchase some rarer spirits as well. Laurie was kind enough to allow my friend Andy and me to host our very own tasting recently and even more generous to allow us to do it our way: The Ultimate Blind Rye Tasting.

After resident alchemist, Alzuri, primed our 22 guests with a terrific rye-based cocktail called a Scofflaw, we gathered in the tasting room (It’s a good idea to wake up your tongue before diving into any tasting). I suggested that our guests chart the different proofs, ages and mash bills as they went along, so they might be able to identify better the taste profiles they should be seeking out in the future. We also asked them to sample each spirit neat first and then with a little water added.

The rye whiskeys were grouped strategically:

High West Rendezvous Rye (92 proof) and the High West ‘A Midwinter Night’s Dram’ (Act 2, 98.6 proof). The Rendezvous is an outstanding blend of 6 and 16-year ryes, and the Midwinter is the Rendezvous finished in Port and French Oak barrels.

Heaven Hill’s Rittenhouse Bottled-In-Bond (100-proof, 4-years old) rye and the Heaven Hill Pikesville Rye. Pikesville is Rittenhouse’s big brother at six years old and ten more proof points.

The “Baby Saz” Sazerac Rye (6 years, 90 proof) and its bolder twin, the Thomas H. Handy Sazerac Rye (2015, 126.9 proof). Same DNA, same age, different proof, and a different barrel.

The Crown Royal Northern Harvest Rye (90 proof) and the Hochstadter’s Vatted Straight Rye (100 proof). The Hochstadter’s is a robust blend of 5 ryes aged 4-15 years, sourced from Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Canada. It’s an affordable, easy-to-find rye with a versatile proof that works great in cocktails as well.

The Northern Harvest Rye was our monkey wrench to throw into everyone’s thinking, and Jim Murray (author of ‘Jim Murray’s Whiskey Bible’) gave us the perfect opportunity. Murray shocked many people (myself included) when he picked the Northern Harvest Rye as his 2016 Whiskey of the Year, adding, “To say this is a masterpiece is barely doing it justice.” Neither of us agreed, but we wanted to see how it fared in a blind tasting. We also served it first so it would remain on the table the entire evening, and people would return to it and compare it to the others.

We never revealed a whiskey until everyone had a chance to form their opinions on each group and commit them to paper. The only exception to the reveal was the Northern Harvest/Hochstadter’s pair, which we saved until the very end. Before each reveal, we asked for discussion and feedback on each group, a show of hands on their favorite of the two, and any tasting notes they wanted to share. We also played a game called “Guess the proof” and “Guess the age.”

There were some surprising discoveries from the tasting (listed in order of reveal):