Whiskey Review: End of Days Distillery Survivor’s Cut Rye Whiskey

I’m a sucker for a good rye whiskey. There’s such a symphony of flavors and textures that you get from rye whiskey done well that lends itself to being both great for sipping and for cocktails. We’ve previously reviewed an unaged rum from the End of Days Distillery here in North Carolina to solid results, so when I spotted their rye whiskey, I wasn’t going to turn down an opportunity to sip some rye.

History

Shane Faulkner spent his career as a businessman in the Wilmington, North Carolina area. But after twenty years working for other companies, he decided to lean into his self-taught love of home brewing and open his own distillery in Wilmington along with his wife Beth.

The distillery opened its doors in early 2020 — only six weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic forced them to shut the doors to the public once more. Despite the lockdown, the distillery continued to operate and innovate, providing hand sanitizer for the local community as well as coming up with delicious new recipes for their spirits.

According to Faulkner, the inspiration for the name came from one session where he and some friends were sitting around a campfire in the early evening, sipping some spirits, and reflecting on life. “At the end of the day, what are we enjoying? Did you have a day well lived and are you spending it with someone that you care about?” Shane said, according to one interview. “We said, ‘you know what? celebrate the day.’ Because life is very precious.”

Product

• Learn More: What's the Difference Between Whiskey, Bourbon, Scotch, and Rye?

While the End of Days Distillery started out producing unaged spirits, they have more recently started moving into the world of aged spirits as well. Their “Survivor’s Cut Series” of spirits are their first attempts at a bourbon and a rye whiskey, and today we’re looking at the rye side of that equation.

The Survivor’s Cut Series Rye Whiskey is made using 65% rye, 18% wheat, and 17% 2-row barley. Notably absent from that equation is any corn, which is a legal requirement for bourbon and usually included to some level in most rye recipes.

Those grains are milled, cooked, and fermented to create a mildly alcoholic liquid. Interestingly, the distillery uses an “open top” fermentation process which allows the ambient yeast within the distillery to interact with the cooked mash in addition to the distiller’s yeast they use to kick start the fermentation process. This typically creates a more diverse array of flavors and better represents the unique terroir and biome of the distillery.

That mildly alcoholic liquid is then distilled to create the newly made raw whiskey, and planed into newly made charred oak barrels to mature for a minimum of two years. The specific barrels for this line of spirits come from the Black Water Cooperage, and are some of the last bourbon style barrels that they ever produced.

Packaging

This is a clear departure from their other bottles — for their unaged spirits, the bottles are cylindrical and much taller, but this is a shorter and squatter design.

The body of this bottle is roughly square shaped, with flat walls and only lightly rounded edges. The top corners are more rounded inwards at the shoulder, and a very short neck is topped off with a wood and cork stopper. Just like with the other designs where the neck sports a very wide lip, this design improves the ability to pour the liquid.

On the front of the bottle is a label design very similar to the one we saw on their rum: namely, a wavy white ribbon at the bottom of the bottle and a colorful circular medallion in the middle with some illustrative artwork. While that version seemed like just an interesting design choice, that circular shape actually fits perfectly onto the flat face of the bottle in this version. The rounded corners from the shoulder of the bottle frame the label and make me suspect this was the original intention of that design.

For this product, they went with an illustrated hourglass design in the rounded center of the label. I’m not sure if that’s a reference to the “End of Days” as in the biblical version of the phrase, or a similar thought for the “Survivor’s Series” being the last production for these barrels, it isn’t clear. But it’s a slightly macabre image in my opinion and just feels like it’s missing a skeleton and a sickle.

Neat

This is one of those rye whiskeys that I feel leans hard into the “sour apple” side of the flavor profile. It’s the dominant aroma coming off the glass, smelling like a freshly licked green sour apple Jolly Rancher. Mixed into that are some notes of vanilla, brown sugar, and black pepper spice… but the sour apple is large and in charge.

That does translate into the flavor, but there’s a quick flash of brown butter that comes across first — like the brown butter that you get with your bread at a Texas Roadhouse. That’s quickly joined by the sour apple Jolly Rancher flavor which is bold and imposing at first, but that tapers off as the flavor develops. Over a few seconds there’s the addition of some brown sugar and vanilla, which when combined with everything else seem to develop into this slightly burnt brown sugar note.

Near the finish, we get a clear slice of rye bread — complete with the yeasty goodness and the black pepper spice. Then, on the finish itself, the flavor calls back to the beginning of the experience and rounds out tasting like a slice of crisp green apple with some honey drizzled on top. And just when you think everything else has disappeared, a little bit of black pepper spice remains behind to remind you what you just sipped.

Taken neat, the flavors here are well balanced and delicious. There’s a distinct journey that you go on as you move from one note to the next, and the combination is entertaining and enjoyable.

On Ice

It isn’t often that a spirit actually survives the addition of some ice in tact. Usually, the lighter flavors will take a beating, leaving behind only the darker and richer components to soldier on. But in this case, I think I can still detect every flavor from the green Jolly Rancher down to the honey drizzled apple slice.

What has changed here is that the black pepper spice is much more pronounced. It’s almost coming across as a slight note of bitterness, adding some texture to the spirit that wasn’t there before. This is a standout sipping whiskey so far, and the resilience of the flavors on the rocks seems promising for cocktails.

Cocktail (Old Fashioned)

I’ll give you a caveat here: this is best prepared with a bit of sugar. Normally, I’ll try to keep my old fashioned cocktails sans sucre to save a few calories, but this really does need a touch of the sweet stuff. The black pepper spice combined with the bitterness from the bitters makes this a tart cocktail, and one I wouldn’t really want to keep sipping. But a little bit of sugar (or, better yet, some honey) does wonders.

The flavors here are great, generally speaking. There’s enough richness in the toasted brown sugar and other rye whiskey flavors that the herbal elements from the bitters have a veritable playground to dance through, making for some delicious combinations. Add in the texture from the black pepper spice and you’ve got a pretty good cocktail with some nice depth to it. I do think there’s an opportunity for a bit more of those darker notes, though, so some chocolate bitters might be in order here.

Fizz (Mule)

Normally, I’d be all about a peppery, spicy mule. But I think that in this case the black pepper spice or the rye spice is just a little too overpowering. Combined with the lime juice, it leads to a situation where I feel like my mouth is being dried out — it’s like I’m sipping a particularly tannin-heavy red wine.

Looking past that point, I think the flavors are there, though. The green apple and the ginger beer pair nicely, and the sweetness of the brown sugar helps to provide some good balance. But the black pepper is just too much for me.

Overall Rating

There are moments where this rye whiskey really shines. Taken neat, this is a delicious ride that has some great twists and turns, and is definitely worth the price of admission. But I think the power of that black pepper spice and rye content makes this a tricky spirit to work with. It needs some care and attention as an old fashioned, and in a mule it might not be the best idea.

Generally speaking, though, I think this bottle is worth the price tag. It’s on the more expensive side of the equation, but the symphony of flavors taken neat is worth it in my opinion.

All reviews are evaluated within the context of their specific spirit classification as specified above. Click here to check out similar spirits we have reviewed.

Overall Rating: 3/5
A green Jolly Rancher with a delicious supporting cast.