Vintage Wine Estates and the Wilkinson Family teamed up to create Splinter Group Spirits, in an effort to marry the wine and spirits worlds. The company finishes its series of whiskeys in wine barrels. For its Whip Saw Rye Whiskey, Splinter Group blends whiskeys up to 7 years old and then finishes the blend in barrels that previously held Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir. Whip Saw, with a mash bill of 76 percent rye, 21 percent corn and 3 percent malted barley, exhibits a lot of the spicy, peppery, earthy, cola-like notes you’d expect from a rye, with a certain dark fruitiness that I suppose you could attribute to the wine barrels. Then again, it might just be the power of suggestion.