Per Freddie Noe: As the name implies, this round of Little Book was a long journey that really tested my skills as a blender. Maybe I jinxed myself naming my first batch “the Easy.” Superstitions aside, I spent a lot of time in the lab on this one. I tried almost forty different recipes. But in the end, all that hard work paid off and we landed on a one-of-a-kind whiskey I'm really proud of. The road to Noe Simple Task started when I visited our Canadian distilleries in early 2017. I enjoy travelling to different places in the world to see how they distill their spirits. There, I was able to taste some great Canadian whisky straight out of the barrel. I was really drawn to the fruit and floral notes they achieve. I wanted to know more. Later in the year I went back for a deeper dive to learn all about their process. And taste some more great whisky. This was a step outside my comfort zone. The rules and laws for making whiskey in Kentucky that I grew up with don't apply up there. But I came back inspired and began blending. Now, while the flavors of the Canadian whisky had piqued my interest, my heart still lies in Kentucky. So I was excited about the idea of bringing the best of both worlds together. Knowing I wanted to blend with Kentucky Straight Rye, I started experimenting with different Canadian whiskies, trying to pull in those fruity and floral notes. They use a lot of different barrels to age up there, so I was able to play around with a lot of different flavors. I was looking for something that would round out the blend and really showcase the nuances of both the American and Canadian whiskies. In the end, I found the 40-year-old whisky and 13-year-old rye helped me achieve exactly what I wanted—a truly balanced and refined whiskey with a nice, lingering finish that's full of flavor.

Our Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskeys are offered as a Cask Strength release. Once our traditional sweet mash process is distilled in our column stills we enter the barrel at the lowest entry proof we know of in Kentucky. We barrel at 100 proof and 105 proof to highlight the balance of the distillate and alternate solubility expression we get from the barrel at a lower proof. We also barreled at a gradient of proofs between 100 and 120 proof for our first few years before settling into 100 and 105 proof. This is the reason you will find releases of our cask strength Rye varying in proof. Our three-grain recipe is 56 percent rye, 33 percent corn and 11 percent malted barley. Our rye mash bill is one we created for a broader balance of flavor to offset the typical high ryes commonly found. We use Kentucky-grown Heritage rye from our local KY Proud farm. We enter the new, air-dried #4 char, 53-gallon barrels at 100 proof and 105 proof for our Rye Whiskey and age until maturity in our barrelhouse. We age our Rye Whiskeys on the upper floors of our rickhouses for a minimum of 4 years with regular expressions expected to be between 6 and 8 years of age.