#Rye July 29

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Today for Day 25 of the 30-Day Ingredient Coach4aday Challenge the theme what constitute RYE Whiskey.

My fascination with this topic goes back to what I learned on a 2021 tour of the Louisville KY distillery Angel Envy. I purchased a bottle of their bourbon during the tour and also purchased some Wild Turkey Rye Whiskey in Lexington KY. Both of those of the bottles are still unopened.

People that are familiar with my choice of alcoholic beverages know I am a beer fanatic. I seldom drink anything other than beer. Yet, my dad loved Rye Whiskey and his bottle of choice was Bellows. He sometimes would go for Bellows Partners Choice.

Making Rye Whiskey

Rye whiskey is made from a fermented mash of grain containing at least 51 percent rye; the remainder of the grain mixture generally consists of barley, corn, oats and wheat.

Bob Lipinski authored a pretty good history on Rye Whiskey for the TBRNewsMedia.

Excerpts are below:

Rye whiskey was first distilled in 1750 in Pennsylvania by local farmers who blended it with corn. Rye’s domination was short-lived because in 1783 bourbon whiskey was made and became the whiskey of choice of middle America.

Rye, along with bourbon whiskey, was affected by Prohibition. This was followed by soldiers returning from World War II who had developed a taste for Irish and Scotch whiskies. Production of rye whisky had almost vanished altogether from its Mid-Atlantic homeland by the 1980s. 

Rye, an American whiskey, was the favorite of President George Washington. In 1797, Washington constructed a large whiskey distillery adjacent to his gristmill on the banks of Dogue Creek in Fairfax County, Virginia. The enterprise became the most successful whiskey distillery in early America, producing 11,000 gallons of rye whiskey in 1799, worth the then-substantial sum of $7,500.