The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails Definition of rye

rye (Secale cereale) is a cereal grain that is used to make spirits, mostly in North America and Europe. Although the largest producers of rye are Germany and Poland, there are only a few rye whiskies in Europe (Zuidam’s Millstone from the Netherlands is one). Rye is mostly used for unaged spirits there: vodka or the German korn. Rye’s real forte in distillation is North American whiskies. See korn.

Rye has been used to make whisky in North America since the days of European colonization. German and Bohemian distillers brought their knowledge of rye spirits with them, the knowledge that rye’s spicy, oily character adds a zesty thrill of flavor to the sweeter side of other distillates. See whisky, rye.

That spicy, oily character was not so pleasing to Pliny the Elder, the Roman naturalist, who found little good to say about it. His Natural History describes it as “a very inferior grain … only employed to avert positive famine.” He didn’t like how it tasted: “Spelt is mixed with this grain to modify its bitterness and even then it is very disagreeable to the stomach.”

But rye did have one quality that even Pliny had to acknowledge: “It will grow upon any soil, and yields a hundred-fold; it is employed also as a manure for enriching the land.” Rye is tenacious, which brought it out of its birthplace, central and eastern Turkey. Archaeologists have found single grains of rye among stores of other grains in sites across central and eastern Europe, but no stores all of rye grains have been found that date from before about 500 bce. Rye’s tendency to successfully germinate and grow almost anywhere—farmers today call these scattered sproutings “volunteers”—would likely cause it to be considered a weed.

Eventually, the weed was tamed and cultivated, as people of the Iron Age realized that this hardy grass that grew on rocky or peaty soil and shook off snow that would frost other grains was useful, and also palatable. It would continue to travel with Europeans, though central and eastern Europe continues to be its solid home, where breads like pumpernickel, roggebrood, and Knäckebrot are staple foods.

While small but significant quantities of rye were used in pot-still Irish whiskies until the 1950s and sometimes also in scotch grain whiskies, rye really came into its own as a whisky grain when rooted in the rocky soils of Pennsylvania and the Appalachians. Beginning in the late colonial period, from the Appalachian front to the valleys of the Monongahela River in western Pennsylvania, rye whisky was the spirit of choice, along with apple brandy. It was taxes levied on rye whisky that were the spark for the Whisky Rebellion, and George Washington himself built a commercial distillery at his Mount Vernon estate that made rye whisky. See Washington, George. After Prohibition, when rye whisky production largely failed to re-establish itself in this area, production moved to Kentucky, where a style developed using less rye in the formulation and a significant amount of corn. In Canada, too, where the original style of whisky used so much rye that “rye” became generic for whisky, rye use sank throughout the twentieth century, with corn taking its place. Some pure rye was still made as a blending whisky, and in 1946 Distillers Ltd. was started in Calgary to create a market for Alberta-grown rye, and it still uses 100 percent rye in some of its whiskies.

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