I have a friend who used to proclaim that he did not like wheat recipe Bourbon until I set up a blind tasting between a 20 year old Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon and a 20 year old Redhook Rye. He could not tell the difference between the two. After all, the twenty years in the barrel made the barrel the dominant flavor in the whiskey. He declared them both excellent whiskeys and he started looking at wheat recipe Bourbons in a different light.
Age does make both styles of whiskey become very similar in taste profile. The longer in the barrel, the more the wood becomes the flavor of the whiskey. Another factor is the amount of corn and rye in the whiskeys’ mash bills. A high rye Bourbon and a barely legal rye also have very similar tastes. Corn gives whiskey a sweeter taste and a barely legal rye has that sweetness in its flavor profile. A high rye Bourbon allows the rye grassiness that rye whiskey has come through as well.
The main difference between Bourbon and Rye whiskeys is the mash bill. They both use the same water. Both use yeast for fermentation and that yeast strain is often the same for both whiskeys. Both whiskeys have the same limitation on distillation proof -160 maximum and are often distilled in the same stills. Both are aged in the same type of oak barrels that are new, charred oak barrels and both are aged in the same warehouses, often next to each other. Both whiskeys go through the same filtration processes and are bottled at similar proofs. That leaves just the mash bill as the difference.
At four years old there are many differences in flavor profiles between the whiskeys. As they age longer, the barrel becomes more of the dominant flavor in the whiskey and it becomes hard to tell the difference between the two whiskeys. The example given above did not even have rye in the Bourbon proving that the mash bill was not a factor. However, I would be interested in doing the same blind tasting with a traditional Bourbon made with rye as the flavoring grain and rye whiskey that was 100% rye or even malted rye. Would there be a difference after 20 years?
These are just a few thoughts I have had on Bourbon and Rye whiskeys. What do you think?
Photos Courtesy of Rosemary Miller