Templeton Midnight Rye Review
Templeton Midnight Rye ReviewWhere to buy Templeton Midnight Rye — compare online retailers and find local stores near you.
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Quick Facts
Is This For Me?
You want a dessert-weight pour rather than a rye lesson; you already like port, madeira or sweet fortified wine; you want something genuinely unusual on the shelf at under $40; or you are building a Manhattan and would rather the sweetness came from the bottle than the syrup.
You want to taste rye. Every reviewer we found agrees the port dominates — one says the grain gets "more than a little lost," another that the two "clash, rather than complement." The finish is the weak point across the board, and this is a blend, not a cask finish, so do not expect the slow integration a real port barrel gives you.
Flavor Profile at a Glance
What It Tastes Like
Nose
Dark fruit first — red berries and dried fig above everything — over a distinctly winey grape note. Brown sugar builds underneath, and the 95/5 rye bread character sits well back.
Palate
Sugared red berries lead, then dried raisin and a chocolate-dipped-fruit sweetness. Vanilla and cinnamon fill the middle, with dark chocolate on the darker edge.
Finish
Short — the most consistent criticism we found. Tannic oak and a tart, port-like grip close it, and the berry sweetness drops away faster than the nose promises.
Best Ways to Enjoy
Neat
Divisive. One reviewer calls it an excellent after-dinner pour; another calls it a less-than-ideal choice for sipping straight. Treat it as a dessert dram, not a nightly rye.
With Water
Not much point. At 45% there is little heat to open up, and water thins the port body that is the whole reason this bottle exists.
On Ice
The best neat-adjacent option. Chilling tightens the sweetness and pushes the grain forward, which is exactly what the pour needs.
Cocktail
Where the consensus lands. Even the harshest review concedes it works as a mixer — and the distillery's own featured serve is a Manhattan.
Cocktail Scores
Price & Value
Street prices have drifted below MSRP since the 2024 launch — we found it at $32.99 at ReserveBar against $39.99 on the brand's own site, and reviewers quote MSRPs anywhere from $35 to $55, which tells you the pricing has not settled. At the low thirties it is a fair price for a novelty you will pour in small measures. At full MSRP it competes with bottles that do more, including the brand's own Templeton 4 Year, which costs less and actually tastes like rye. Buy on the discount, not the sticker.
Bottle Transparency
- DistillerySourced. The label states "Distilled in Indiana, Aged in Templeton" — the distillery is not named, though reviewers widely assume MGP. Aged and bottled at Templeton Distillery, 209 S Rye Ave, Templeton, Iowa. Company: Templeton Rye Spirits / Infinium Spirits.
- Grain95% rye, 5% malted barley — the standard Indiana high-rye recipe. Grain origin not published.
- MaturationCharred new American oak. No age statement; the brand describes it only as a blend of aged rye stocks.
- Port componentCalifornia dark port wine blended directly into the finished whiskey. This is not a cask finish — no time in a port barrel is involved, and the quantity of wine added is undisclosed.
- FiltrationNot disclosed by the producer.
- AwardsGold, 2024 San Diego International Spirits Competition. Note that this — like most spirits competitions — is a pay-to-enter event, so treat the medal as marketing rather than independent assessment.
Full Review: Templeton Midnight Rye
Start with the thing almost every shelf tag gets wrong. Templeton Midnight Rye is not a port-finished rye. It is a rye whiskey with California dark port wine blended into it after maturation. The brand says so plainly, and Breaking Bourbon makes the same point: "rarely do you see a company create a national release by blending their whiskey with another spirit or wine." We have seen several retailers describe it as "straight rye finished with dark port wine." That is wrong on two counts, and the difference is not pedantry — it is the whole character of the pour.
What Blending Does That Finishing Doesn't
A port cask gives up its flavour slowly and unevenly; the wood mediates. Adding wine straight to the whiskey does not. The result is a much louder, more literal wine note, and every independent reviewer we found registered it in the same direction. Drinkhacker's Christopher Null called it "one of the strangest whiskeys I've sampled in the last year or so" and described an "aggressive, gummy quality" he associates with wine barrels — except more so. Whisky Advocate noted the port "dialing back the rye spice and overwhelming the more subtle fruits the grain could offer." If you want the genuine article for comparison, Woodinville Port Finished Rye spends real time in real port pipes and reads completely differently.
Where the Reviewers Split
The nose is the one thing nobody argues about: it is good. Berries, figs, raisins, brown sugar, a clear grape-and-wine lift. Barrel Banter said the nose "hints at potential greatness," comparing it to A Midwinter Night's Dram. Then the pours diverge. Bourbon Bossman loved it as an after-dinner dram and awarded his "Drink It!" rating. Barrel Banter scored it 6/10 and called the finish "burnt popcorn and ash." Breaking Bourbon landed at 2.5 out of 5, noting a "muddled" midpoint. Whisky Advocate went the other way with 89 points. That is a genuinely wide spread for five reviewers, and it is worth knowing before you spend forty dollars: this bottle does not land the same way twice.
The Absence Worth Naming
Dill and caraway — the two descriptors that define classic American rye — appear in exactly zero of our sources. Neither does the black-pepper bite you would normally expect from a 95% rye mash bill at 90 proof; only the brand's own copy mentions pepper, and brand copy does not count toward our consensus. What you get instead is fruit and sugar. That is not a defect, but it does mean the word "rye" on the label is doing less work than usual. The nearest comparison on our shelf is Basil Hayden Dark Rye, which also blends port into rye and draws the same split verdicts.
Our Verdict
A legitimately interesting experiment that is more port than rye, priced fairly at street level and awkwardly at MSRP. Buy it as a dessert pour or a Manhattan base, not as your house rye, and go in knowing the finish is the weakest part — that is the single most repeated criticism across every review we could find. If sweet is what you are after and you would rather it came from the grain and the wood, our best sweet rye whiskeys are a better place to start.
Community Tasting Notes
Be careful with this number. It rests on just five independent scored reviews — below our normal floor of six — and we could not find a single crowd rating pool for this bottle anywhere: no Distiller, Whiskybase, Total Wine or retailer star count exists for it. Drop the harshest review and the figure moves from 3.2 to about 3.3; drop the most generous and it falls to roughly 3.1. Treat it as provisional, and note that the published verdicts run from 2.5/5 to 89/100 — an unusually wide spread.
Top Reported Flavors
Rating Distribution
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Pros & Cons
Pros
- Genuinely unusual — very few national releases blend wine straight into whiskey
- The nose is the strongest part, and every reviewer says so
- Brand publishes the full mash bill, proof and state of distillation
- Low heat at 90 proof; sweet enough to work as a dessert pour
- Strong Manhattan base that needs less vermouth than usual
- Widely discounted below MSRP, often near $33
Cons
- The port overwhelms the rye — the single most repeated criticism
- Short finish; one reviewer found it outright bitter
- Very thin review pool — only five independent scored reviews exist
- No age statement and no named source distillery
- Routinely mislabelled by retailers as a port cask finish — it isn't
- No dill, caraway or pepper: not a rye for rye drinkers
Frequently Asked Questions
❓ Is Templeton Midnight Rye port finished?
❓ What proof is Templeton Midnight Rye?
❓ What is the mash bill?
❓ Is it a straight rye whiskey?
❓ How old is Templeton Midnight Rye?
❓ Is this the same as Pendleton Midnight Rye?
❓ Is Templeton Midnight Rye worth buying?
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