Elijah Craig Straight Rye

ABC - $35.99 

TW - $33.99

Class VI - Not Available

ABV - 47%

NAS

Mashbill - 51% Rye, 35% Corn, 14% Malted Barley

Thanks to Breaking Bourbon for breaking down the mashbill.  They’re a great resource.

23 Jun 25

Elijah Craig

From the ABC website - This extraordinary extra-aged rye whiskey is the first to carry the name of Elijah Craig, the entrepreneur and distiller credited with being the first to age his American whiskey in charred oak barrels to make bourbon.

I was struck by the amount of malted barley in the EC mashbill.  Whenever I look at mashbills I always see ‘5% malted barley’ in the list.  I never really understood why.  Well, let's learn together.

After a google search I came across a short article at the Distillery University website discussing the reasons for including malted barley in a bourbon or rye mashbill.  As you know, the mashbill for a single malt scotch is easily understood - it’s 100% malted barley.  And you also know that ‘malting’ occurs when the barley is permitted to sprout to a certain degree.  The sprouted barley is then killed in a kiln using some sort of fuel.  They can use electric heat or they can burn peat and allow the smoke to kill the barley.  This is how you get peated scotches.  The smoke from the peat sticks to the barley and remains with it throughout the fermenting and distilling. Nothing like a good peated scotch!

So what’s up with the 5% malted barley in a bourbon?  Turns out the malted barley brings something else to the distilling fight.  From the Distillery University:

“Malted barley in whiskey production serves two key functions: providing fermentable sugars and contributing to the overall flavor profile. The malting process activates enzymes within the barley that convert starches into sugars, allowing yeast to efficiently ferment the mash into alcohol. Additionally, malted barley adds nutty, biscuity, and caramelized flavors that enhance whiskey’s depth and complexity.”

Bourbon and rye distillers are not going to be inclined to use a peated barley because they don’t want the peat to overwhelm the flavor of the corn or rye - but they could.  I don’t know of a law that would prohibit that.  

And we’re gonna need to review our high school biology about what an enzyme is.  From the internets:

“An enzyme is a biological catalyst, usually a protein, that speeds up chemical reactions within living organisms.They are essential for virtually all cellular processes, including digestion, energy production, and cell growth. Enzymes work by lowering the activation energy of a reaction, allowing it to proceed much faster than it would on its own.”

So the enzymes in the malted barley act on the starches in the vat full of corn or rye quickly turning the unconsumable starches into more-easily consumed sugars for the yeast.  The yeast eats the porridge of delicious corn or rye and pees out (sorry, it’s a biological term) magical alcohol.  They continue to eat the sugars until they are overwhelmed by the vast quantity of urine that they are peeing and covered in (I call that TOOSday), and meet a satisfied death knowing that they will make us all very happy.  Of course, at that point you have a mixture that more-closely resembles beer at about five or six percent alcohol.  We want all the good stuff and none of the bad stuff so distillers boil the ‘beer’ and collect the alcohol - boom!  We now have whiskey (unaged), vodka, tequila, rum etc.  And that is what’s going on in the fermentation.  

As one internet commenter put it, Elijah Craig Straight Rye is barely legal rye with just 51% of the mashbill being the required, primary grain to be called ‘rye’.  Rye is often the main secondary grain in bourbon.  So you would have 51% corn with the 5% malted barley as described above and the rest is often rye.  Those would be the high-rye bourbons like Wild Turkey.  In this case, though, it’s 51% rye and most of the secondary grain is corn.  So I guess you could say it’s a high corn rye (not a common phrase in the whiskey world but you get my drift).  

Simply put, the reason why they use so much malted barley is because, in addition to the chemistry, they like what the barley does to their rye’s flavor profile.  It adds a nuttiness that you wouldn’t get without it.  I didn’t realize until I did this research that 12-14% barley is common among rye distillers.  Who knew???  Well, besides the distillers, and pretty much everyone except me.  Now I know too!

Elijah Craig Straight Rye is good.  It’s not my favorite rye whiskey, but it’s a quality whiskey and worth trying.  Kujaguza!

CHOCOLATE & CHERRY RYE MANHATTAN

ELIJAH CRAIG STRAIGHT RYE

2 oz. Elijah Craig Straight Rye Whiskey

.75 oz. Sweet Vermouth

• .75 oz. Cherry Syrup

• 5 dashes of Fee Brothers Aztec Chocolate Bitters

• Brandied or Whiskey Cherry (garnish)

INSTRUCTIONS

In a mixing glass with ice, add Elijah Craig Straight Rye, sweet Vermouth, cherry syrup, and chocolate bitters. Stir until well chilled. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a brandied or whiskey cherry.