There’s nothing like sipping on your favorite cocktail while blasting your favorite album.
If you’re a Metallica fan, this experience just got even more elevated.
Following up The Black Album Whiskey Pack, Blackened American Whiskey just debuted a new limited edition bottle: Rye the Lightning. Inspired by Metallica’s six-time platinum sophomore album, Ride the Lightning, the release is crafted from Kentucky straight rye whiskeys aged five to eight years and hand-selected by Rob Dietrich, Blackened’s master distiller and blender.
"I absolutely love the high spice and earthy notes in American rye whiskey,” said Dietrich. “I wanted to play with those flavor profiles by bringing a symmetry of subtle flavor elements by combining not just one, but two different cask finishes to the whiskey, creating a complex balance of sweet and savory."
After making the selections, the whiskeys are then vatted and transferred for finishing in Madeira wine and Caribbean rum casks for two to 14 weeks, which results in notes of dried fig, hay, pinewood, pear and rum cake on the nose and clover honey, mint, corn husk, sugar cane, walnut and cinnamon on the palate.
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Ride the Lightning comes in during the rum cask finishing stage. Through Black Noise’s sonic-enhancement process, the barrels are blasted by low-hertz frequencies of music. The sound waves visibly shake the barrels, causing amplified interaction between the whiskey and wood, which extracts more flavors and colors.
With the mission to go big, Dietrich and Metallica opted for a playlist of live music for the sonic-enhancement process. They chose the Ride the Lightning portion from the band’s 2012 Orion Music + More festival set, which was the only time they had ever played the album live in its entirety.
“The vibe from the crowd at the first Orion Music + More Festival was electrifying,” said bassist Rob Trujillo, “And it’s really cool that we get to capture that energy in this release. We’ve used a few live songs in our playlists before, but never a full live playlist. So to be able to incorporate our fans in the Blackened journey and have them be a part of the whiskey-making process is really unique and makes this a true collaboration."
Photography by: Courtesy Blackened American Whiskey
