A Guide to Rye Whiskey
Bordeaux Index
9 June 2025
Rooted in American History, Revered Today: The Enduring Legacy and Distinctive Character of Rye Whiskey in the World of Fine Spirits
Bourbon may now be America’s ‘Native Spirit’, but it was Rye that was the founding father of American whiskey. Before the start of the republic, rum had reigned supreme in the colonies, but with the many barricades, figurative and literal, put up during the 18th century, America moved to becoming a whiskey nation. The history of rye is one of ups and downs, and closely follows America’s own.
Corn, the backbone of bourbon, is now comfortably the largest-grown crop in the USA with an output of around 400 million tons, nearly 2,000 times that of rye. Though corn is indigenous to North America, before the 18th century, it predominantly grew south of the Mason-Dixon line, while most of the population resided to the north. European settlers had brought with them their traditions, religions, and their grains, with wheat, barley, oats, and rye all being planted from the early 17th century.
Introduced by the Dutch, the first crop of American-grown rye was harvested on Manhattan in 1625, with the next recording in 1633, just outside Salem, Massachusetts. (An interesting aside: Rye has been put forward as a possible cause for the accusations of witchcraft in Salem 60 years later. It is susceptible to a fungal disease called ergot, which can produce hallucinogens like LSD). These settlers found the glacial soils of the American Northeast ideal for rye cultivation. Rye could grow in poor, sandy, or acidic soil, mature quickly, and withstand drought and harsh winters. It became first a staple crop and then later a staple spirit.
While the northern European colonists had long used rye as a staple of both diet and their drink, the British favoured barley and wheat and had long since used rye as feed for livestock or ground cover in the springs. They had to learn how to distil it from their Dutch and German neighbours.
However, as easy as it was to grow, it also proved hard to distil: the higher proportion of non-fermentable substances in the grains led to a sticky mash that had a propensity to burn and was difficult to move from fermentation to distillation. Benjamin Franklin commented in 1765 on the distillation of rye that sediment burning and essential oils caused a 'generally vile smell and taste that renders them very disagreeable'. The first recorded distillation of rye in America was by Englishman Emmanuel Downing in Massachusetts in 1648, though it was not a success, and he quickly gave up and turned his attention to rum.
Despite these challenges, with the large influx of immigrants, particularly Dutch, Germans and Scandinavians into Pennsylvania over the next hundred years, rye cemented itself as the grain of choice. Commercial distilling began there in the 1750s, when two Swiss Mennonite farmers Johann and Michael Shenk started a rye distillery in 1753 - this distillery would later be known as Bomberger’s from 1860, and then Michter's in the 1950s, before closing in 1989.
As access to rum became harder due to British taxes and subsequent maritime blockades during the Revolutionary War, whiskey was quickly becoming more popular. By the late 1700s, thousands of small grain distilleries dotted the country. George Washington himself had his own rye distillery at Mount Vernon in Virginia, capable of producing over 11,000 gallons of whiskey per year (though he still ordered two hogsheads of rum to celebrate his inauguration).
The first major setback for rye, and whiskey more generally, came in 1791, when Alexander Hamilton, as part of his plan to pay off the federal government’s Revolutionary War debts, imposed a tax on domestically produced whiskey. The first federal excise tax imposed by the American government was commonly known as the Whiskey Tax, and was immediately unpopular with people already not kindly disposed to what they felt were unjustified taxes. Frontier farmers in Western Pennsylvania, many of whom used whiskey as currency, were incensed. The resulting Whiskey Rebellion became the first major domestic challenge to federal authority. Farmers tarred and feathered tax collectors, burned buildings, and refused to comply. In 1794, President Washington personally led a force of nearly 13,000 troops to finally suppress the rebellion, though not the sentiments. The tax was eventually repealed by Jefferson’s opposing Republican Party in 1802.
Despite the disruption, whiskey’s growth continued apace. In 1791, whiskey accounted for around a third of distilled spirits by volume, behind rum and fruit brandy. By around 1810, whiskey would account for 80% of all distilled spirits in America, and the number of distilleries swelled to an estimated 20,000 by 1840.
Alongside the growing population, distilling had been expanding further south and west. The whiskey tax had only been levied, or at least competently collected, in the thirteen colonies, so there were fresh opportunities in places like Kentucky. Corn was abundant there, cheaper than rye, and yielded more alcohol per litre. Even so, most early whiskeys from Kentucky were still what we might today call “high-rye bourbons”, often using 20-35% rye in the mix.
Whiskeys from Kentucky at this time were generally known as Kentucky Ryes, or ‘Western whisky’ (sic). However, the limited shipping routes, downriver to New Orleans or inland over the mountain, meant that, as long as most of the population remained east of the Appalachian Mountains, rye would remain dominant over its cousin from Kentucky.
Other variations also started to be recognised through the first half of the century. These included North Carolina ryes, New Orleans ryes, Orinoko, Alexandria, and Roanoke from Virginia, Tuscaloosa in Alabama, Baltimore in Maryland, Tuscarora, Allegheny, and Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, and more. Though there were differences in production, these names were largely geographic more than stylistic. The two most famous examples were Maryland Rye and Monongahela Rye. The quality and boldness of Pennsylvania’s “Monongahela rye” in particular was legendary, its deep, spicy, full-bodied flavour famous enough to be referenced in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick as “unspeakable old Monongahela”, along with “old Ohio” and “old Orleans”.
Industrialisation and the advancement of the railroads meant that Bourbon would become a much bigger challenger to Rye in the second half of the 19th century, but that threat was not nearly as significant as the looming spectre of the third wave of the Temperance movement and the rise of the Anti-Saloon League. From its founding in 1893, its successful organisation against the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages was to lead to the 18th Amendment, Prohibition, in 1920.
While consumption itself was not outlawed, the Volstead Act prohibited the production, sale, and distribution of intoxicating beverages. A few companies received licences to produce “medicinal whiskey” but most rye distilleries did not survive the following thirteen years.
This was all but the death knell for the rye industry. When whiskey production resumed after the ‘Noble Experiment’ ended in 1933, the landscape had totally changed. Whiskey stocks made before Prohibition had dwindled dramatically – consumption had increased while it was in force – and imported spirits were ready to dominate the American market. The only way for American producers to compete was going to be not on age or quality, but on price. In an effort to lessen the effects of the Great Depression, the first ever farm subsidy bill in the US was introduced. However, while the bill covered corn, rye, already a more expensive grain, was not included. The large distilleries of Kentucky and Tennessee were in a position to resume distilling, while the smaller farm-based rye distilleries of Pennsylvania etc were not.
There were brands, like Old Overholt, and distilleries, like the Frank L Wight Distilling Co and the Baltimore Distilling Co, that continued to produce in the old style after Prohibition, but the accessibility and price assured the ascension of Bourbon. For the next 70 years, rye wandered in the wilderness. A small amount would be made by the Bourbon distilleries, but it was little more than as a gesture, or to be used as a flavouring grain for Bourbon.
Green shoots of change began to be seen in the early 2000s with the renaissance of the cocktail. Hugely popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and even during Prohibition, consumption of cocktails had been in decline since the end of the Second World War, the “victim” of changing consumer habits and improvements in food technology that rendered almost obsolete the trained bartender armed with various ingredients. The cocktail had largely been replaced with the quicker, easier and more profitable “mixed drink”, resulting in a generation of bartenders with little knowledge or interest in the legendary drinks their predecessors had created. There were however still a few influential “old school” bartenders in cities around the world, and as drinks they are credited with inventing like the Cosmopolitan, Bramble and Espresso Martini gained popularity and spread across the world thanks to the diaspora of colleagues with whom they had worked, so did the cocktail begin to gradually re-enter the conversation.
By the mid-2000s, the cocktail renaissance was in full swing. Speakeasy-style bars and classic recipes returned to prominence. Mixologists diving into vintage cocktail books quickly discovered that many foundational drinks - like the Manhattan, the Sazerac, and the Old Fashioned - were originally made with rye, not bourbon. These drinks came alive when made with spicy, dry rye whiskey. Demand surged; by 2006 there were about 150,000 cases of rye sold in the US every year, compared with just shy of 15 million cases of bourbon. It then started growing at a huge rate, by 20% in 2006, 30% in 2007, and then by over 1,000% since 2009. Needing to fulfil this growing demand for rye, distilleries that had mothballed their expressions of the grain brought them back, and new brands and producers entered the market, their passage eased by a relaxation in liquor laws that allowed for the establishment of boutique, craft distilleries with smaller capacities than had hitherto been allowed. Looking to differentiate themselves from larger concerns, many of them turned to America’s “forgotten” whiskey – rye. Even George Washington’s Mount Vernon distillery was restored in 2007, once again producing rye whiskey according to his 18th-century methods. It wasn’t just a revival in name, but in style and substance. Brands like New York’s Hudson Whiskey, Colorado’s Leopold Bros., and Pennsylvania’s Dad’s Hat embraced rye’s heritage while pushing it in new directions. There was just one small problem; producing rye whiskey takes time, and many needed something to sell whilst building their own distillery, or waiting for their nascent stock to mature.
Enter Midwest Grain Products (MGP). An industrial alcohol and food ingredients producer from Kansas, MGP had recently purchased a huge distillery in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, that had long been a bulk source of bourbon and rye for the various corporations (particularly Seagram) that had owned it during its 160-year history. However, decades of bulk production in a declining whisky market had led it to be deemed surplus to requirements by its previous owners, and it had been scheduled for closure. It now enjoyed a unique position – vast stocks of long-aged rye whiskey, made to a unique mashbill (the Lawrenceburg Distillery had long pioneered a 95% rye, 5% malted barley recipe), and at last faced with both producers and consumers thirsty for the product. Having initially struggled to find customers for the whiskies they had made, MGP were now inundated with requests for their whiskies, with new producers and brands bottled under their own labels, some of them doing so as a temporary measure whilst they waited for their own whiskey to mature, others doing so on a permanent basis. The “non-distiller producer” was suddenly prevalent, and brands like High West, Michter’s, Smooth Ambler and Whistlepig to an extent made their names by carefully selecting and blending barrels of rye produced at MGP.
It is thought that MGP sold their first casks around 2009, and it is fair to say that since that time, rye whiskey has gone from strength to strength, not only in the United States, but around the world. There are now over 500 distilleries across America producing rye, a sea change from the mere dozen or so a decade ago. Moreover, distilleries that had previously shown no interest in rye other than a flavouring grain have begun to get in on the action; Jack Daniel’s, Jim Beam and Wild Turkey, all giants of American distilling, have in recent years released rye whiskies for the first time in their respective histories; proof, if any more were needed, that rye is truly back, and here to stay. Though bourbon still leads in sales, rye’s trajectory speaks to a deeper craving - one for authenticity, flavour, and a connection to America’s earliest distilling traditions. In the glass, it offers more than just spice. It tells a story of immigrants, rebels, presidents, and pioneers. And after nearly disappearing, that story is once again being told.