Twenty years ago, rye whiskey was all but dead in the U.S., having long since fallen out of favor. In 2009 Imbibe magazine published a prescient piece titled “The Comeback Kid: Rye Whiskey,” noting the spirit’s current lack of popularity and predicting its imminent return. In the article, a representative for Heaven Hill distillery—which at the time was making three brands of rye, including the now much-beloved Rittenhouse—was quoted as saying, “We spill more bourbon in a day than we sell rye in a year.” Last year the U.S. Distilled Spirits Council announced that sales of rye whiskey had increased 536 percent by volume between 2009 and 2014, prompting a flood of articles declaring that rye was back. Still, the Washington Post reported last year that even after its astronomical sales increase, rye accounted for only 1 percent of all the whiskey sold in the U.S.
“Rye has a very spicy bite,” Mancini says. “I can drink two-year-old bourbons but I would normally not drink a two-year-old rye—four years is as young as I’d want.” Just as barrel-aging can help tame rye whiskey’s heat, so can malting the rye. As an example, Mancini explains the difference between scotch and Irish whiskey: scotch is made from 100 percent malted barley, while Irish whiskey is traditionally made with a mix of malted and unmalted barley. “Irish whiskey has more bite, it’s got a rougher flavor, because the malting sweetens and softens the flavor,” Mancini says. As a result Irish whiskey is usually triple distilled, which Mancini says gives it a cleaner, sharper flavor.
