Still Austin The Artist Rye Review

Still Austin opened in 2017 as the first distillery inside Austin's city limits since Prohibition, and it built its reputation on a promise most craft distilleries quietly break: no sourced whiskey, and no grain from outside Texas. "The Musician," its straight bourbon, came first and sold faster than almost anything in the state's history. "The Artist" is the rye that followed in December 2022 — 100% Brasetto rye, grown in Texas, distilled on a 42-foot column still shipped in from Scotland, and bottled at 99.6 proof. The mash bill is not the 51% legal floor, and it is not the 95/5 MGP recipe that defines most of the American rye shelf. It is all rye, and you can see the rest of that small club in our 100% rye whiskey collection.

Two Years That Don't Taste Like Two Years

The single most repeated observation across our sources is disbelief at the age. Paste said it "could pass for twice its age statement." Drinkhacker opened with "shocker from the start: this comes across as much more mature and interesting than a 2 year old rye." The Whiskey Shelf went further — "this could easily be 6-8 years old already." That is three independent reviewers arriving at the same reaction unprompted, and it is the strongest signal in the whole pool. The likely mechanism is not marketing: Texas heat cycles barrels harder than Kentucky does, and the cold water reduction proofing means the spirit meets its water slowly, in the barrel, rather than all at once at bottling.

Fruit and Chocolate, Not Dill and Pepper

If you come to this expecting a dry, herbal, dill-forward American rye, you will be surprised — possibly pleasantly, possibly not. Honey is the anchor on the nose, named by five sources, with cherry and dried fig behind it and clove running through. What is notable is the herbal, grassy quality four reviewers find on the nose and almost nobody finds on the palate — it reads as lemongrass, cut grass or rose depending on who is describing it. The palate then swings warm and dark: dark chocolate and caramel dominate, with ginger and black pepper providing structure, and the finish dries out into cinnamon and orange zest. Worth naming as a real absence: dill does not appear in a single source we read, and caraway appears in exactly one out of ten. On a 100% rye that is genuinely unusual, and it is the clearest evidence that Texas terroir and Kentucky tradition produce different whiskey from the same grain.

Where the Critics Disagree

This is not a unanimous bottle, and it would be dishonest to present it as one. Drinkhacker gave it an A− and said he would reach for it beside Rittenhouse any day. Paste scored it 8.1 and called himself "pretty impressed." Breaking Bourbon, reviewing the same liquid, gave it 2.5 out of 5 — below average on their scale — despite writing warmly about it in prose. That is a two-point spread between respected critics on an identical product, and it is the reason the consensus figure here sits at 3.8 rather than higher. If you want the same distillate with the volume turned up, the Still Austin Cask Strength Rye is drawn from the more notable barrels of this very stock, and the critics who found this one thin tended to prefer it.

Our Verdict

A real achievement for a two-year-old whiskey, and one of the more distinctive ryes under $50 — honeyed and fruit-forward where most of its price peers are dry and peppery, with enough proof to work in a Manhattan without being sanded down. It is not a traditionalist's rye and it will not satisfy anyone hunting age or dill. It is, however, exactly what grain-to-glass Texas whiskey was supposed to deliver, and it mostly delivers it. For a Texas peer at a similar strength, compare the Balcones 100 Proof Rye.