Recreating Pre-Prohibition Rye: Liquid History Lessons Are The Best Kind

Get outta that barrel and get in my liver! Photo courtesy Leopold Bros.

Last year, I reviewed the 1909 Old Overholt i’d acquired a little while back, and in the post I wrote, “If you’ve got a time machine handy so I could try this stuff a century earlier, please let me know.” Well, Todd Leopold of the Colorado-based Leopold Bros. distillery didn’t score a time machine, but he did the next best thing — he had a three-chamber still made. That’s the type of still that was used to make rye whiskey pre-Prohibition, one which hasn’t existed in the lifetimes of most whiskey drinkers, to say nothing of distillers. He also figured out what makes pre-Prohibition rye so different from the rye we drink today, and set out to replicate everything from the type of rye used to the fermentation methods to the barrel proof entry. And what he made was ridiculously close to that Overholt from the Taft administration. I’m thrilled, not least because I’m almost done with the Overholt and don’t want to shell out the insane amounts of money required to score another.

Leopold’s Three Chamber Rye is a landmark whiskey, and I was thrilled to be able to write about it for Robb Report (here’s the link). Have a read and get excited for its upcoming release!