Spirits_Rye_Win19_Ed-final.qxp_Road Trip_Cinci.qxd 11/29/19 9:43 AM Page 22
liquids | spirits
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BY SUSAN REIGLER | PHOTO BY ANDY HYSLOP
ourbon drinkers are aware that their favorite whiskey, while distilled from a fermented grain recipe that is mostly made up of corn, usually also contains a fairly large percentage of rye, as well as a portion of malted barley. In the whiskey industry, rye in this context is referred to as a “flavoring grain.” Most bourbons are about three quarters corn. But some have quite a high rye content. The B mash bill for Four Roses, for example, is 60 percent corn, 35 percent rye, and five percent malted barley.
Occasionally (in about 20 brands nationally out of hundreds), wheat is used as the flavoring grain. Even more rarely, both will be used. Or some different grains entirely, such as rice or oats are included. Nonetheless, rye is the flavoring grain of choice for bourbon. It adds spice and backbone to the sweetness coming from the corn. But, while bourbon is America’s “native spirit,” as defined by an Act of Congress in 1964 declaring that bourbon is “a distinctive American product,” a different whiskey was the darling of American drinkers just after the Revolutionary War. Rye whiskey, where corn was the flavoring grain, was king. Or perhaps, more fittingly, president. The proprietor of one of the largest commercial whiskey distil22 Winter 2019 www.foodanddine.com
leries in the United States at the end of the 1700s was George Washington. Turning grain into whiskey was a great value multiplier for the crop, since it could be converted to a non-perishable product and shipped easily. So, most farmers, including Washington, were also distillers. (Similarly, excess fruit was distilled into brandy.) Unlike other farmers, Washington employed an immigrant Scot named James Anderson, who built and ran his Mt. Vernon distillery as a large-scale enterprise. Upon Washington’s death in 1799, it was producing more than 10,000 gallons of alcohol per year which supplied taverns in Alexandria, Baltimore, and beyond. The Mt. Vernon rye had a mash bill of 60 percent rye, 35 percent corn, and five per cent malted barley. It was not aged (therefore clear in color) and sold as “common whiskey.” Today Washington’s distillery has been recreated (with stills made at Louisville’s Vendome Copper & Brass Works) and a limited amount of both aged and unaged rye is made and sold at Mt.Vernon. George Washington’s Straight Rye is aged four years, uses the historic mash bill, and is 86 proof. Rye was a grain that grew well in New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. So historically rye was the whiskey of choice in those states even as distillers west of the Appalachians were building the cornbased bourbon whiskey industry. The Manhattan cocktail, invented in New York in the late 1800s, was originally made with rye, as well as