The Death of Rye in America
The Death of Rye in America
Whisky education from Whisk(e)y Advent 2025 (2025-12-11). Summary below; full write-up with sources and images: calendar/2025-12-11.qmd.
Rye and bourbon were early-American staples. Prohibition (1919) allowed ‘medicinal’ whiskey; stockpiled aged stock was sold. After repeal, the Agricultural Adjustment Act (1933) subsidized corn but not rye - a major reason rye declined.
Verbatim source text
Reproduced from calendar/2025-12-11.qmd (Whisk(e)y Advent 2025).
Rye and bourbon were prevalent in early America— rye was a common product in the northern states, and distillation was a great way to preserve the harvest. Bourbon was more common in the south, where corn naturally grew. Then, in January 1919, national Prohibition was instituted through the eighteenth amendment. Congress passed The Volstead Act prohibiting alcoholic drinks, except in certain circumstances— one of which was for “medicines that are unfit for use for beverage purposes”. This, of course, led to a significant increase in prescriptions by physicians for “medicinal” whiskey.
Most of the whiskey sold during this era seems to have been aged for a while; the Food and Fuel Control Act of 1917 prohibited the production of liquor from food sources since the US was engaged in war overseas. What could be sold was what was already stored. Distillers had seen prohibition coming, and stock-piling of product was already happening before the law took hold.
Many distillers didn’t survive prohibition. Some, including Iowa’s Templeton Distillery, thrived.1 But rye and bourbon were both well-represented in the “medicinal” whisky space.
So what did rye in? Farm subsidies. After prohibition ended, distillery stocks were low, the war was over, and people were ready to start celebrating again. Months after prohibition ended, the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 was passed to help farmers through the Great Depression. Corn was a subsidized crop; rye was not.
Footnotes
Templeton thrived because in the small town where the rye was made, everyone was in on it, according to distillery representatives.↩︎