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While bourbon may today be considered America’s spirit, once upon a time, rye whiskey reigned supreme. Rye has been produced in the United States since the 1800s, when Scottish and Irish immigrants settled on the land now known as Pennsylvania and Maryland. These immigrants, having a taste for whiskey from their homelands, found themselves unable to reproduce the spirit they were familiar with but found they were able to distill whiskey from rye and corn, and thus, rye whiskey was born. By 1810, Pennsylvania was producing and exporting 6.5 million gallons of rye per year, which dwarfs Kentucky’s 2.2 million gallons produced during the same time period.
Of the styles of rye produced in colonial America, two dominated — Pennsylvania, or Monongahela, style rye and Maryland style rye. The two styles were easily distinguishable from one another due to their mash bills, which were reflective of the grains that grew locally as transportation of bulk supplies was an impossibility at the time. As such, the Pennsylvania style reflected high rye and non-existent corn content as the grain is native to lands south of the Mason-Dixon line, which falls right on the border of Pennsylvania and Maryland.
Despite rye’s immense success in the 19th century, the ratification of the 18th Amendment in the United States curtailed the category’s growth and nearly eliminated the existence of rye whiskey as we know it today. By the time distillers were able to produce rye again at the conclusion of Prohibition, whiskey supplies had been completely depleted and rye distillers were put at a competitive disadvantage against bourbon distillers. At the time, those distilling bourbon benefited from a number of advertisements for cheap, unaged offerings which overtook rye as the preferred whiskey among lovers. It wasn’t until the cocktail Renaissance of 2006 that rye would re-enter circulation and regain the respect of whiskey drinkers around the world.