Bruichladdich Just Made the First Rye Whisky on Islay

Throughout the 500-plus-year history of Scotch whisky, it has almost always been distilled from one grain: malted barley. Sure, grain whisky — made from corn wheat, unmalted barley, and other grains — is in the picture, but the vast majority of it is used to augment lighter blended whiskies, rather than enjoyed on its own. Rye whisky has, for centuries, been left to distillers from America, Canada, and northern Europe.

That’s about to change. 

Bruichladdich, one of nine distilleries on Islay, home to Scotland’s most famous peated whiskies—including its own Octomore and Port Charlotte expressions—is introducing Laddie Rye, a 7-year-old whisky distilled from 55% rye and 45% barley, all grown on Islay. While Bruichladdich isn’t the first Scotch distillery to release a rye, it’s the first on Islay and the most well-known among those that have done so.

Scotland is an excellent place for farmers to grow rye. Its year-round cool climate is ideal for most rye strains, and rye makes an ideal cover crop to plant in winter — it helps prevent soil erosion during the fallow seasons and replenishes the soil with valuable nutrients. So why has rye never caught on there? 

“No one’s ever really thought about it,” says Adam Hannett, Bruichladdich’s master distiller. “It’s quite a lot of effort when the whole industry, in terms of what the farmers are growing, the seed merchants, and all the infrastructure, all the kind of stuff that goes on in the background, it’s really just built around single malt. It’s a winning formula. So I think probably over the years, it’s never really been something that the industry really needed to think about.”

What got Hannett thinking about rye was sustainability. “We’re growing 1,500 tons of barley [annually] on the island. So it’s been really successful,” he says. “The farmers are all getting on board. But… when you make whiskey, you’re in the agricultural industry. What we started to see was, if you’re just growing barley year after year, you can’t really rotate the crop. So we started to think about the future and being more sustainable, being more regenerative in agriculture.” 

In 2017, Hannett, working with Andrew Jones, an Islay farmer who grows barley for Bruichladdich, introduced a crop rotation system that involved planting rye. In short order, the quality of the soil — and the barley — improved dramatically. Then came the question of what to do with the rye. “The moment you export it off [the] island, it becomes the most expensive rye crop, with all the transportation involved,” says Hannett. “So if we can use it locally, for us, it’s a great opportunity.”

Scotch whisky distilleries aren’t designed to work with rye, which is notorious for its potential to gum up a still if things don’t go perfectly. The solution was a mashbill that’s 55% rye and 45% malted barley; the enzymes in the barley break down the starches that can stop up the still. 

There were other unforeseen problems, among them malt companies’ refusal to malt rye. “It’s only a couple of years ago we managed to even get the grain malted,” Hannett notes. “We’ve been working with unmalted because when I was speaking to malting companies, they say, ‘No, that’s contamination. We don’t write different grain in our system, we want it 100% barley.’… Scotland isn’t built for it.”

Hannett had never distilled rye before working on The Laddie Rye — in fact, it was the first time it had been done in the history of the Bruichladdich distillery. It was a challenge he welcomed. “We know how to make whiskey at Bruichladdich — if I may say so, we do it very well,” says Hannett. “But we’re following a process. We know what works, and so we stick to that process. But the moment you’ve got to think differently, the moment you’ve got to be really creative, you’ve got to try something new, and you have to think about how you can use that equipment in a different way, that was really exciting.”

The Laddie Rye has been aged for seven years in a combination of first-fill ex-bourbon barrels and two types of virgin American oak barrels, both of which have been toasted — but not charred —  to soften the impact of the wood on the spirit. Hannett is pleased with the results: “The flavor of the grain is really what you can taste. Of course, the wood is there, it’s why we’re releasing it now [because] we’ve got this lovely balance, but it’s really showcasing the quality of the spirit.”

Bottled at 50% ABV, the brand’s tasting notes highlight aromas of black pepper and baking spices, such as ginger, clove, cinnamon, and nutmeg. On the palate, classic Bruichladdich fruity and floral flavors meld with honey, vanilla, and peppery spice from the rye; Hannett also points out distinct aniseed and black licorice notes.

Because of its experimental nature, the inaugural Laddie Rye is available exclusively in the U.S., and the number of bottles has not been disclosed. 

Looking ahead, Hannett confirms there will be future Laddie Rye releases, but they likely won’t be identical to the initial batch: “You start to think again about a bit more time in casks. Some of the vintages we’ve distilled, I’ve gone for more heavily charred wood to see how that changes the thing as well. So, how we mix, maybe toasted and charred, and casks that have held a couple of different spirits, it’s just all about opening up and trying new things for the maturation to see how it opens up. I hope some of the experiments make it to the public so that we can compare and contrast.”