The beer pours out a thick, dark black with a brown head on top. The head is about one finger tall but fades away to lacing after just a minute or two. Right when you bring it to your nose you get a blast of rye whiskey flavor. It is sweet and spicy with a nice note of booziness.
There's a strong cocoa flavor without a ton of heavy sweetness or the vanilla flavor that you get from a bourbon barrel aged beer. There are hints of caramel and roasted oak just behind the cocoa. There's a very nice consistent whiskey flavor throughout the beer. The rye has more of a spicy flavor to it than the bourbon barrel aging gives, and the spice lasts throughout the beer. The stout is also brewed with rye malt.
This is a great beer. It is heavy, but not so heavy that you can't drink a few of them in a row. It is sweet, but not sweet enough to make you sick to your stomach after half a growler. Incredibly well balanced would be an understatement for this beer. Each unique character has been allowed to have its moment in your taste buds. Right now you can get this on growler, so get it while you can.
I give it a 4
El Duque: I will admit, when I had this, I was nursing the Vertical Epic tasting hangover. With that being said, what better cure than a good ol whiskey stout. There were two things going on in my mouth. The first was sweet toffee and oak. Kind of like a burnt marshmallow. The other was straight whiskey booziness. It created a great taste combination, but even though the rye cut it well, I still found the syrupy-ness a little much, which may have been because my liver was holding my soul hostage.
If I could cellar this and let it mellow, this would easily be a 5, but fresh from the tap, its a little too raw, but it's damn good.
I give it a 4
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