Rye
While bourbon is considered America’s native spirit, rye was actually the favored whiskey among her earliest colonists and continued to be popular well into the 1800s, especially in northeastern states like Maryland and Pennsylvania. George Washington even famously distilled rye at his Mount Vernon estate in Virginia. By U.S. law, rye whiskey must be made from a mash of at least 51% rye (with corn and malted barley typically rounding out the remainder of the mashbill). Rye must adhere to the same production standards as bourbon: aged in new, charred oak containers, distilled to no more than 160 proof, entered into barrel at no more than 125 proof, and bottled at a minimum of 80 proof. A straight rye whiskey must be aged for at least two years. Rye whiskey production largely ceased in the U.S. after Prohibition, despite its popularity with America’s nascent cocktail culture at the time — although rye has always been popular in Canada, and rye remains a major component in many Canadian whiskeys today. The resurgence of American whiskey in the late 1990s and an explosion in the popularity of craft cocktails around the same time has launched a revival in rye whiskey production — and consumption — in America.
Top Rye Whiskey Posts:
Knob Creek Rye
WhistlePig Straight Rye Whiskey 10 Years Old
Woodford Reserve Rye
Iowa’s Templeton Whiskey has launched the first in a new collection of bottlings called Hidden Stash. Intended to support “the pinnacle of its aging program,” the series begins with a 13 year old rye whiskey, sourced from Indiana. It’s made from a classic 95% rye/5% barley MGP mash and matured in heavy char barrels before…
According to a July 2025 Gallup poll, only 54% of American adults report that they currently drink alcohol. That figure represents a historic low. From 1997 through 2021, the percentage of adults who drank alcohol consistently held at or above 60%. The drop has placed real pressure on the American beverage alcohol industry, which now…
Kentucky Peerless launched its first Toasted Rye in early 2025 and promptly sold out. A second edition arrived in recent months, made using the same process: Peerless Toasted Rye is aged first the distillery’s standard, level 3 charred new oak barrel, then moved to a second, toasted barrel for finishing. There’s no additional detail on…
For 2025, Jack Daniel’s added two very different experimental whiskeys to its impressive Distillery Series: The first was a well-aged bottling of its classic Tennessee whiskey recipe, but with a rather important and unprecedented distinction. Jack begins each distilling season with a limited run of sweet mash to produce the setback needed for their standard…
Pinhook is one of those distilleries (a la Barrell) that has so many iterations on so many expressions that it’s difficult to keep up with them all. Today we’re checking in with two offerings from the busy blender, including its latest Collaboration Series offering and our first encounter with its Vertical Series Bourbon. Pinhook Collaboration…
Chip Tate entered the American whiskey conversation in 2008 with the founding of Balcones Distilling in Waco, Texas. Operating from a repurposed welding shop, Tate engineered and assembled his own copper stills, setting the stage for a hands on approach that quickly separated his work from established producers. At a moment when small scale distilling…
Founded in 2021, Kentucky-based Rare Character has become something of a fan darling among non-distilling producers. In addition to their branded releases — which include both single barrels and batched products — the company has revived and relaunched a number of historic labels, including Fortuna, Brook Hill, and Old Cassidy. The company’s latest offering is…
For decades, American whiskey has been shaped by a relatively small circle of entrenched producers concentrated in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana. While a few early independents matriculated in the mid-1990s and early 2000s, the period between 2010 and 2015 marked a dramatic increase in the number of small distilleries across the country. These newcomers entered…
Heaven Hill’s Grain to Glass Series is barely two years old, but the annual whiskey trio produced from locally grown corn is already getting a line extension with the recent release of the new Specialty Barrel Series. For the inaugural releases in that series, Heaven Hill used the same corn varietal that featured in the…
When Elijah Craig launched its Barrel Proof lineup in 2013, we had no expectation that it would continue all these years and ultimately take a place as one of the most revered and anticipated bourbons to hit the market at a regular clip. The whiskey began life as a 12 year old expression, then changed…