The best craft whiskey distillers have built their reputations on offering something different from the mainstream producers. Sometimes that’s pioneering smoked whiskey, or novel styles like American single malt. Other times, it’s going back to the roots and changing the grains that whiskey is made from.

American whiskey’s big players overwhelmingly rely on the commodity grain system for their base ingredients. This means using a single type of corn (yellow dent), neutral malted barley, and whatever hardy, high-yield strains of wheat and rye can be grown at scale for low cost. For rye in particular, distiller supplies often include a mix of varieties, all jumbled together.

Over the past century, commodity agriculture has raised yields, lowered the cost of goods, and made the system more efficient—but at a cost to flavor. Ever wonder why you see so many barrel-finished whiskies? It’s because it’s much easier, and usually cheaper, to create new flavor at the end of the process—i.e., through maturation—than at the beginning. Large-scale distilleries are designed for the commodity grain system; even if they wanted to use more expensive specialty grains, they can’t often source them in big enough volumes to make sense for their systems.

But many craft distillers, operating on a much smaller scale, are willing to put in the effort and cost to make whiskey from non-commodity grains, often called heirloom or heritage varieties. Nowadays you can find bourbon made with heirloom corns like Bloody Butcher or Jimmy Red. It’s not easy, or cheap: they have to locate the seed—often tucked away in an academic seed bank—then find a farmer willing to grow it. That process usually takes years until there’s a large enough crop yield for distillation. And, of course, there’s no guarantee that what comes out of the barrel years later will taste any good. Yet so far, the pursuit is proving worthwhile, with some distilleries doubling as labs that carry out research on specialty grains—Far North Spirits in Minnesota and Virginia's Reservoir Distillery are two notable examples.

Rye whiskey has even greater potential than bourbon to showcase unique and interesting flavors through the use of heritage grains. Rye is, after all, referred to as a flavoring grain: in whiskey, it expresses more flavor compounds than corn and can run a wide gamut, from floral and perfumey to savory and spicy. Heritage rye whiskeys taste far different from the standard Kentucky-style rye or MGP-style 95-percent rye.

The field of heritage rye is still small, but growing, especially as interest in historic whiskey styles, like Pennsylvania rye, increases. It’s a fruitful area of exploration for whiskey lovers because of the baked-in diversity of flavor. Below are some of the best rye whiskies made from different heritage strains. It’s quite the, uh, va-rye-ety. 

Heirloom and Heritage Rye Whiskey to Try 

Abruzzi Rye

High Wire Distilling Abruzzi Rye ($46)

Leopold Bros. Three Chamber Rye ($50/200 ml)

Italian in origin, Abruzzi rye (also called Wrens Abruzzi) has a lower starch content than other varieties, meaning distillers have to use a greater quantity in a typical mash, yielding more dense flavors. At Denver’s Leopold Bros., Abruzzi is the standard for every whiskey that includes rye in the mashbill. But its rich aromas and oily texture show especially well after distillation in Leopold’s custom three-chamber still. In Charleston, South Carolina, High Wire Distilling uses Abruzzi to make Revival rye. The port-finished variant adds an enveloping layer of velvety fruit, the perfect foil for the whiskey’s earthy notes of cacao nibs and mint.

Balboa Rye

New Riff Balboa Rye ($55)

A variant dating back to around 1919, Balboa (once called Balbo—this deep dive explains why the name changed) historically grew well in Tennessee and Kentucky, where New Riff is now based. The distillery’s corn supplier had been farming Balboa for thirty years as a cover crop before he began selling it to New Riff, which makes masterful Kentucky-style rye and bourbon, along with a host of more experimental whiskies. The distillery’s 95-percent Balboa rye debuted in 2019 and reappeared this year; future batches should be more frequent. Expect peppery spice and earthy flavors, with the comforting graininess of rye bread.

Danko Rye

Barrel 21 Distilling Woodcock Rye ($40)

Black Button Empire Rye ($75)

Lost Lantern Finger Lakes Distilling Pommeau Cask-Finished Rye ($100)

Kings County Distillery Empire Rye ($99)

Matchbook Distilling Metamodernity Cherry Wood Rye ($88)

McClintock Distilling Bootjack ($45)

Originating in Poland and used widely in brewing, Danko only recently made its way to U.S. farms, but it has taken off as a popular option for whiskey in the Northeast, where it grows well. Several New York distilleries have employed Danko in their Empire rye mashbills, prizing its cocoa and spice notes. The rye makes a fruitful canvas for experimentation too, as Matchbook did by malting and then smoking it over cherry wood (that rye is, alas, sold out).

Horton Rye

New York Distilling Co. Jaywalk Rye ($50)

Dating back to the 17^th century and originating in the aptly named town of Rye, New York, Horton was revived in 2010 by Brooklyn-based New York Distilling Co. Starting with just ten seeds, it took five years to grow enough of the grain for a batch of whiskey, initially aged for seven years and released as a limited edition. Jaywalk is now a core part of the distillery’s range, its flagship featuring a blend of both Field Race rye and Horton, which contributes flavors of caramelized sugar and tropical fruit.

Hazlet Rye

Far North Roknar Rye ($55)

Located in Hallock, Minnesota, just 25 miles from the Canadian border, Far North is a true farm distillery, growing almost all the grain it uses for its whiskies. Founder Mike Swanson is a rye fanatic, and even worked with the state’s Department of Agriculture for several years to study different rye strains for both agronomic performance and aroma and flavor in whiskey (detailed results here). The ryes weren’t strictly heirloom or heritage—all were fairly modern in origin, and some were hybrids—but the one that Far North focused on for its flagship rye, Hazlet, merits inclusion as it was chosen for its sensory characteristics, especially notes of toasted grain, fruit, and florals.

Rosen Rye

Stoll & Wolfe Rosen Rye ($120)

Laura Fields, a historian and Pennsylvania agriculture advocate, helped bring back this rye strain, noted for its intense sweetness, that was once used widely in the state’s whiskey industry. Several distilleries are now working with it, but the first to release an aged whiskey, in 2019, was Stoll & Wolfe. Dick Stoll was the last Pennsylvania distiller to work with Rosen in the 1970s, at the old Michter’s plant, so it was fitting that he also got to revive it in this century. The most recent batch of Rosen is sold out, but look for more from Stoll & Wolfe and other distilleries, like Liberty Pole and Michigan’s Mammoth Distilling, in the future.