After years of hard work, an inordinate amount of swearing, and an almost Zen-like level of patience, the distillers at Iron City Distilling have launched their flagship rye whiskey, Bessemer Heritage Rye. This marks the first Bessemer whiskey to be made available year-round.
Bessemer Heritage Rye is designed to drink like the long-lost Pennsylvania rye whiskeys that made Pennsylvania one of America’s leading whiskey states, arguably the leading whiskey state, the years leading up to Prohibition. Iron City conferred with several whiskey historians and dug through historical documents to uncover the distillation and maturation methods that were the signature of pre-Prohibition Pennsylvania rye. From this research and a lot of high-spirited internal debate, ICD landed on their recipe.
- Made from a pre-Prohibition mash bill of 50% raw rye and 50% malted rye, all heirloom varietals (specifically Danko and Rosen), and all grown in the state of Pennsylvania.
- Distilled in pot stills and chamber stills (Iron City Distilling operates one of only three whiskey-producing chamber stills in the world) which was how Pennsylvania rye was distilled in the late 1800s.
- Matured in new high toast, heavy char American oak barrels, using a traditional low entry proof of 101-proof to balance the grain and wood characters in the final whiskey.
- The barrels were rested in a continuously steam heated warehouse where temperatures drop no lower than 70°F during the winter months and may rise above 105°F during summer. This was how most Pennsylvania distillers matured their whiskeys prior to Prohibition.
- The final blend is 37% pot distilled Danko rye, 36% pot distilled Rosen rye, and 27% chamber still Danko rye.
- The whiskey is bottled at 50% ABV (100-proof).
Iron City Master Distiller, Matt Strickland, said of the release, “I’ve spent the past few years questioning everything I thought I knew about whiskey making, often sending myself into doom spirals of self-doubt. Afterall, how the hell do you go about recreating a whiskey that hasn’t existed in over a century? How do we know if we got it right? All I know is that whatever we landed on sure tastes delicious. And best of all, it’s unlike any other rye out there. We hope people enjoy drinking it as much as we enjoyed making it.”
Bessemer Heritage Rye is priced at $47.99 per 750ml bottle and $11.99 per 100ml bottle (“Baby Bessemer”).
