Vintage Sherbrook Rye

[MikeK]

I sampled a vintage miniature of Sherbrook Rye this past weekend. It was quite unique. I was curious if any of you folks (John?) knows much about this distillery, and whether this is representative of the Maryland style?

The bottle reads:
Sherbrook
Maryland Straight Rye Whiskey
7 years old
86 proof
Distilled by the Frank L Wight Distilling Co
Loreley Maryland

I am guessing the mini was 1960's or early 70's vintage.
Although one thing that puzzled me was on the back it talked about the recipe being developed in the 60's and passed down for four generations. I guess they meant the 1860's ??

It had a huge nose and flavor with elements of rye and juniper. It was very unique and bold. My buddy ArtL thought it reminded him quite a bit of the recent Willett Rye.

[gillmang]

Frank Wight was a long time distiller in Maryland and is mentioned in James Bready's article on Maryland distilling from 1990. That big red rye whiskey taste was a Maryland specialty. A lot of it was blended but you have an unblended example. I forget who owned the Sherbrook label (probably Schenley or Hiram Walker) but it would have sourced rye from smaller distilleries including ones Wight was associated with.

When you say juniper, that makes me think of genever gin, which is (in its traditional form) a low-proof, rye-based whiskey much like straight rye except not aged, or not aged in new charred wood. Even in modern ryes, which have a goodly amount of corn in them, I sometimes get that connection to Dutch genever gin (e.g. de Kuyper). BMH 18 does it for me, also some bottles of ORVW 13 year old rye.

(I am starting to develop a theory that low-proof rye whiskey derived mostly from a rye mash has a natural juniper taste. Maybe the Dutch added juniper when they lacked enough rye, or to rectified spirit which had rubbed out that character. E.g., Maytag's whiskies have a marked spicy juniper-like edge, especially his Hostalings).

John can explain more but to my mind, this reddish rye of Maryland was quite different to Old Overholt and that style of rye. Also, Pikesville rye, while said to be Maryland in style, to me always seemed more Western Pennsylvania in character (even when made in Baltimore - I tasted some fine Maryland-era Pikesville courtesy Dave Gonano).

At John's in his whiskey collection I tasted some Mount Vernon from 1930's-1950's and your description of the Sherbrook is similar to what those Vernons were like: they were more the classic Maryland straight style, I think, and you have tasted it now too.

As for what the 1860's recipe was, hard to say. F.X. Byrn's book on distilling was issued in those years, and maybe the recipe followed his prescription for rye whiskey which was 80% (unmalted) rye, 20% barley malt. I think straight Maryland rye was mostly rye, in other words.

Maybe the rye element was malted and possibly kilned to a higher temperature than is common today.

But how exactly they got that spicy sweet taste, I do not know. Probably an element was the use of well- and naturally seasoned, first growth wood for the barrels. ( They also got the taste through blending, which would have entailed adding blending agents, but again some was sold uncut and you know yours had nothing added to it). I think it was the yeasts they used then too (maybe top-yeasts which worked in a particularly estery way), the rye strains they had, the fact of a mostly rye grist, and again that old natural wood.

Gary

[dgonano]

Yes the taste and aroma is very reminiscent of Pikesville Rye.

I have a bottle of 10 yr Sherwood Rye produced By Frank Wight at Lorely, Md.

I believe that distillery shut down in the late 1950's when Schenley purchased it and ceased operations.

I have a friend who grew up on a farm next to the Lorely operation. This was back in the 1930's. She asked me if I had ever heard of Frank Wight whiskey...boy, did my eyes light up!

The Wight family also produced Sherbrook and Ryebrook among others at their Cockeysville, Md plant.

John Lipman has some great articles and pictures on his webpage..

[EllenJ]

We had the pleasure of joining with Dave Gonano, Mike Veach (MBHOF), SamKom, Howie, and Jim Bready in Cockeysville MD last summer for one of our little motel-room-tasting-blitzes.

We enjoyed several examples of pre-'80s rye. Unfortunately Sherwood was not among them, but at least two examples from Frank L. Wight's Loreley distillery were. And the location we chose was practically around the corner from the last remains of Wight's Ryebrook distillery. You can see photos at http://ellenjaye.com/shrwd_sherwood.htm and read about the twists and turns that the Sherwood brand has gone through. It remains one of our favorite examples of booze forensics.

The differences that Gary refers to between the type of rye whiskey produced in Western Pennsylvania and what was associated with Eastern Pennsylvania and Maryland were very real, but not really in a way that you could tell by tasting examples from any time in the twentieth century. The true "Monongahela" rye, like the true New England Rum it may have once substituted for, was a product that had disappeared long before individual liquor bottles became common. So there are no examples remaining. What we DO have are examples of whiskey that was marketed then (as brands continue to be today) as being "made exactly like the original". And such a statement is no more a lie today than it was a hundred years ago.

Add to that the idea that just a handful of beverage conglomerates ended up with all the existing brands AND all the existing stock. A particular brand of whiskey, prior to the thirties, was mostly NOT the product of a single distillery, but rather a mixture of whiskey purchased from several distilleries with the goal (amongst reputable liquor marketers) of maintaining a consistancy of high quality. The contributing distilleries were usually not very wide-spread, and therefore a certain regionality was inherent in the product.

The Volstead Act, however, brought with it restrictions on storing and disbursing alcohol that soon presented massive enforcement problems. These were resolved by impounding the contents of hundreds of little warehouses and transferring the barrels to centralized bonded facilities. As a practical matter, most owners of whiskey stock simply sold it to the few companies licensed to bottle medicinal alcohol. By the time it became legal again to sell whiskey, any regional differences were long gone. So the Mount Vernon (Maryland-style) Rye sold by National Distillers in 1940 might have been made at the same distillery as the Old Overholt (Monongahela-style) Rye. They didn't taste the same -- neither does Knob Creek and Basil Hayden -- but that's a distiller's choice, not a regional profile. Schenley (bless their hearts) was great at pouring whatever they happened to have into any brand's bottle they wanted... and getting away with it, because mostly all of their rye whiskey was pretty d@mn great. Sam particularly loves Sam Thompson, which was once almost the definitive Monongahela Rye. Except that (1) it was really only a "Monongahela" rye because it said so on the label (see discussion above), and (2) the REAL Sam Thompson Rye, made in West Brownsville, had nothing but the name in common with what Schenley was selling from the '30s to the '60s. That doesn't detract one iota from the fact that it was outstanding whiskey -- and Sam can list at least a few of the widely-separated distilleries where the contents of any given bottle might have been made.

Bourbon is a LITTLE less confusing, at least partly because the industry is still alive and healthy. Oh sure, the Kentucky distillers certainly had their shake-outs, too. But the brands one is most likely to encounter today are actually being produced currently. At least for the standard issue brands. Knob Creek always came from Beam. Maker's Mark was always made at Loretto by the Samuels family. Wild Turkey doesn't make anything but Wild Turkey.

Never mind that the little Anderson county distillery on Turkey Hill in Tyrone once called the whiskey they made J. T. S. Brown. And Ripy Bros. That was when the whiskey bottled as Wild Turkey (Austin Nichols' house brand for bourbon whiskey) was contracted from Jim Beam and Barton. And let's don't even START on where that little Ezra Brooks distillery the bottle invites you to visit is actually located.

Yeah, I guess bourbon's got it's share of complications, too.
And THAT's what I love about the world of American whiskey!

[cowdery]

Before I ask my question, I will note that, more often than not, when you see a list of products offered by a Kentucky distillery pre-Prohibition, one of them usually is a straight rye whiskey.

My question.

What historic "type" of rye whiskey does today's straight rye whiskey most resemble.

Original Monongahela? (Not likely, based on what you said.)

Late pre-pro Monongahela?

Late pre-pro Maryland?

Post-pro Monongahela?

Post-pro Maryland?

Pre-pro Kentucky? (straight rye, that is.)

[EllenJ]

Chuck,

You're right. There was a LOT more rye whiskey being distilled in Kentucky than most folks realize.

The only example we have of pre-pro Kentucky rye is a bottle of really-truely William Gaines' Old Crow Rye. Frankly, it's not the best whiskey I've ever tasted, but some who've tasted it think it's great. From my (admittedly limited) perspective, it's too dominated by a mothball camphor flavor. Others, however, like it.

I believe (and my studies are certainly ongoing, in-progress, and subject to change) that most of what we call "rye" today is an attempt to reproduce the best of the type of rye (American rye, not Canadian) that was available from just before prohibition to around the late '70s.

My current belief is that such rye was closer to the Maryland style than to the Monongahela, in flavor.

But it may have been closer to the Western Pennsylvania style in production. That's because much of the classic Maryland rye whiskeys were really high-quality blends, or at least "blends of straight whiskies" while virtually all of the original Monongahelas would have been more similar to "straight" whiskey.

We'll never know what REAL Monongahela rye was like, as that beverage was shipped only via barrel and we have no bottled remnants of it to taste. From what I've read, I would guess it was not exactly the measure by which all fine whiskey should be measured. Pretty rough 'n' tumble stuff, actually. But my guess (currently) is that it was close enough to New England rum that had been sent out for several weeks on a ship, rocking back and forth through the tropics to Sierra Leone and back, to be marketable as such (by the totally fraudulent) or as Monongahela.

My belief is that it got that way from a long, bumpy, journey across the Allegheny Mountains, with multiple stops along the way, each of which invlolved months of storage in warehouses. With the arrival of steamboats and locomotives, transportation went from months, to weeks, to days. And other methods of aging the whiskey had to be devised. We may not approve of some of the methods used, but there they were. And that was the birth of Maryland (and Eastern Pennsylvania) Rye. Those methods were pretty much closed out by the Bottled-in-Bond and Pure Food and Drug Acts, which is how we got Maryland Rye as we now know it.

Bottom line?

Monongahela was once a very distinctive regional style of "rum, made from rye grain".
All of that vanished before the Civil War.

Maryland (and Baltimore) Rye was an attempt to create a similar product, using blending and imitation techniques available at the time.

Kentucky Rye was (as it still is) an expression of whiskey in which the mash consists of more rye grain than everything else combined (i.e., 51% rye grain).

[gillmang]

John's opinion is highly valued but here is what I think.

Monongahela whiskey originally came in new (white) and not long after, aged varieties, even before it was shipped very far.

I have read enough 1800's references to red or "old" Monongahela whiskey (including Herman Melville's in Moby Dick) to suggest this was so even before the whiskey was bottled.

This whiskey was somewhat, in its aged form, like Old Overholt today. Overholt still uses more than 60% rye.

Maryland rye generally was redder in colour and while often blended (e.g., Melrose, which was a blend of straight ryes) some was sold straight and originally made in Baltimore, Loreley, Havre de Grace, Cockeysville and many other places (see again Bready's article, also John's fine American Whiskey Pages at ellenjaye.com).

I think the local Maryland manufacture, dating from the 1800's, imparted a rich, sweet, spicy quality. It may have come from malting some of the rye used in the mash. I have had rye beers that are reddish and spicy and a distilled rye beer would have been too although the colour would have to come from the casks. Maybe it was Frank Wight's yeasts that did the trick (which perhaps had a regional characteristic). Whatever it was, this seemed a regional style and that fruity quality is remembered, correctly, on the current Heaven Hill web site, in respect of Pikesville rye. Except, I do not find Pikesville particularly fruity-tasting and I am not sure it ever was. But that doesn't matter, someone at Heaven Hill knows that, in general, Maryland rye was fruity-tasting and he is right.

The aged version of Monongahela survived after Prohibition and in somewhat altered form to this day, sometimes with more corn than was used in the past. Examples are Old Overholt, Wild Turkey Rye, Thomas Handy rye. I think Kentucky rye simply used more corn than Pennsylvania and Maryland ryes did although that did not fundamentally change the palate of American rye whiskey in my view. (I think too recipes must have varied even for the Mon distilleries discussed by John in his Whiskey Pages). In Lancaster County, PA in 1809, Samuel M'Harry indicated familiarity with all variations of rye and corn mashbills.

E.g. at John's I tasted his pre-Pro (entirely made and marketed before 1920) Old Overholt. It was superb and better than anything available today but clearly linked in my view to the modern whiskies mentioned. And that bottled Overholt was, I believe, similar in character to most aged Monongahela rye made 30 and 50 years earlier. I can't prove that but I believe it. I also tasted a circa-1900 Baltimore rye that was richly fruity - the classic Baltimore taste. So these were the two poles of pre-Prohibition rye whiskey. As for rye made before Prohibition in Kentucky, probably it followed more the Monongahela style. I remember a letter Mike Veach posted where a bourbon distiller in the 1800's deprecated the Maryland distillers. So probably the Maryland style did not appeal to Kentucky palates. Also, rye whiskey would have come into Kentucky from Pennsylvania, and Virginia to a degree - Maryland would have had little influence on Kentucky distillation practice and I'll give you another example of that. Kentucky practiced sour mashing and Maryland did not (per Bready again or Carson in his Social History of Bourbon - one of them wrote this).

The Maryland reddish, sweetish, spicy, "juniper" style also (I believe) survived Prohibition and the vatting and blending that happened during Prohibition. Frank L. Wight (who started in distilling before Prohibition) and others kept it going. Today in my opinion, nothing really resembles that style. The closest is Three Grain from Kittling Ridge in Ontario which has a sherry-influenced taste (from finishing in sherry casks) and it reminds me of the straight and blended Maryland whiskies I have tried but is much lighter and less intense. Mount Vernon, as tasted at John's, reminds me of it to a degree but John is right, its profile became (even in the 30's) more similar to Western Pennsylvania whisky. Mount Vernon was originally established by a family from Philadelphia, so from the beginning its origins were perhaps mixed although I think the earliest examples were probably very Maryland in style.

Whiskeys I believe were broadly in the classic Maryland style (whether blended, blended straight or all-straight) were Sherbrook, Sherwood, Ruxton, Melrose, Melvale, and the aforesaid 1900 Baltimore rye tasted at John's. I am not sure about BPR. I have not tasted most of these but based on descriptions by others or various reading (e.g., the booklet I have on the history of the Melrose distillery which speaks of a blending agent used to marry 5 straight ryes - that had to be a sherry or other like-concentrate), I think Baltimore rye had in general this fruity, estery quality. The statement on the Heaven Hill site, derived from industry insiders, is further proof. And we see that the Sherbrook straight rye from the mini (see the taste note in the first post in this thread) meets that description to a t. Case closed.

If you take that Three Grain, add a dash of Pikesville to pick up the rye character, and add some sweet rich bourbon to impart new barrel character, that would resemble I think that Sherbrook or some of the classic straight or blended Maryland whiskies.

Dave's 10 year old Wight-distilled Sherbrook is (I suggest) a definitive form of Maryland straight rye whiskey. Dave, can you give a taste note of it? I project that it tastes sweet, spicy, spearmint-like with juniper tangs. I don't really see it as similar to Maryland Pikesville rye. I think the latter was atypical Maryland and was more the drier, austere, "toasted"/varnish style like aged Monongahela was.

It is important again to note the reddish sweet taste of Maryland whiskey was not always the result of blending. Wight made many whiskeys (i.e., at different distilleries - see Bready again) that had that character that were sold straight. Many other Maryland whiskies were sold straight. If anything, the matter was the reverse: the blenders sought to emulate the best qualities of that straight Maryland rye.

Gary

P.S. In the Melrose booklet I mentioned, there are numerous straight ryes in the product list at the end of the book. In total there are 4 blends - two of which are blends only of straight, or straight rye, whiskeys - and 3 straight ryes (one bonded). I think most companies probably did similar. A gradation of quality would have existed. E.g., whoever distributed Sherbrook probably had different blends out too. The whiskeys would have tasted similar but with different intensities of flavour.

[bourbonv]

John,
How do you know for sure that Monongahela rye did not taste just like Jim Beam rye?

[gillmang]

Exactly.

Gary

[EllenJ]

John, How do you know for sure that Monongahela rye did not taste just like Jim Beam rye?

Exactly.

I don't. "Certainty" is, at best, an illusion -- in anything.
What I DO know is...

1. Monongahela wasn't made the same way as Jim Beam rye.
Matter of fact, Jim Beam rye isn't made the same way as it was just forty years ago, and I can prove that.
Bring your own glass

2. More specifically, the conditions that distinguished the beverage known to New Englanders, New Yorkers, Londoners, Parisians, Philadelphians, Baltimorians, and maybe even some of the more sophisticated Louisvillians, as "Monongahela" (the word rye was not normally included) were very different from those that produce Jim Beam rye. They were also different from those that produced "whiskey" as it was commonly known in those areas. I disagree with Gary about there being such a thing as a "white" Monongahela. While I do believe the people on the western frontier drank unaged whiskey just like everybody else, I also believe that the product that eventually ended up sold as Monongahela in a Boston tavern would have seemed quite foreign to them.

3. And, meanwhile back at the ranch... which, in this case would be Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, the Böehm family was splitting up (possibly over issues relating to the insurgenc... uh, Revolutionary War), with members moving out to places such as Ontario province, the northwest territory known as Ohio, and Frederick, Maryland. And from Maryland to the Virginia frontier of Harrodsburg. Perhaps your question should be considered even MORE appropriate due to the likelyhood that Jakob Böehm probably considered ONLY rye as being appropriate for distilling. There is at least some reason to suspect that it was David Böehm's (or maybe his son's) introduction of German/Bohemian/Swiss rye whiskeymaking to the already established Scots-Irish tradition of corn whiskey that was the basis for Bourbon-as-we-know-it. Ta-DAH!! The Beams may really BE the fathers of bourbon after all!!

4. Or maybe not.
Who knows?
My purpose here is to present reasonable explanations that are (1) logically consistant; (2) difficult to disprove without resorting to the "authority" form of argument; and (3) address issues that are conveniently overlooked by the stock explanations provided by politicians who are/were closely connected to the Kentucky whiskey industry.

Like I said, I've never tasted REAL Monongahela.
And neither has anyone else.
There is nothing in the literature contemporary to those times to indicate a similarity with any current alcoholic beverage, nor, for that matter, to anything known as "whiskey" in those times. It appears to have been known only as "Monongahela", just as "tequila" today isn't called "tequila maguey".

[gillmang]

John, why would you not consider whiskeys such as the early Large I saw in your collection a classic Monongahela whiskey? Or that great pre-Pro Overholt? Why would production have changed significantly over a mere 75 years or even 100 years in those (more stable, settled) times?

Jim Beam rye may not be as good as in the 1960's, but broadly we can agree it is aged rye whiskey, and we have to remember Beam rye was probably older and higher proof back then.

Byrn in the 1860's gave the then-accepted recipe for rye whiskey - he lived in Pennsylvania - as 80% rye, 20% barley malt. Those Large and Overholt whiskeys surely were made like that, more or less, and Overholt still is, more or less.

In your introductory remarks to your Monongahela whiskey pages, you state that Monongahela rye tasted like current Old Overholt if you added a touch of Old Potrero to it. I agree with that. That is what your pre-Pro Overholt was like and later Overholts and Vernons I tasted with you. Pikesville basically tastes like that (as Jim Murray said, "new car interior and apple cider"). We are in the same ballpark, in other words, with all these whiskeys.

As for non-aged Mon whiskey, Isaiha Morgan rye is probably an example and the corn whiskeys of some of the small distillers might recall Mon corn whiskey (which definitely existed, I have read this from period sources but cannot document it now).

I know what you mean about young Mon whiskey being the local tipple and the aged product having developed through shipping elsewhere but once people understood what shipping did the aged articles must have come home fairly early (as in bourbon country). The distilleries you describe in your pages must have made, methodically, that kind of rye.

It was in other words aged high wines made mainly from rye. That is what Kentucky rye still is.

Gary

[dgonano]

My Wight Rye whiskey does have the Sherwood label and ,yes John , you did taste it last June at our Bready get-together. I said it resemled the Pikeville but only to the extent of the rye overtones. Actually the Pikesville provides more mint with a musty fruity taste . The Sherwood is much spicier and is very fruity with more wood (it is a 10yr whiskey).

You will find the old ryes to have a higher rye content in the mashbill. The BPR rye we tasted was 99+% rye and claimed that all other ryes were inferior and misleading for have other grains in the mash.

[gillmang]

Thanks Dave, your comments accord with what I would have thought. (It was me that asked you about the taste of the Sherbrook 10 year old rye, not John).

I did get mint in those Pikesvilles but not really fruit (there we may differ a bit) but the big spice and fruit notes you got in the Sherbrook to me denote classic Maryland. If Melrose used a blending agent to marry its 5-straight rye blends, it must have had a similar fruity taste, enhanced in that case by sherry, port or whatever binder was used (I think sherry or similar because it is so common in world whisky practice to do that). Plus, that 1900 Baltimore rye I had at John's had that taste, as did a 1940's blend of straight ryes from Four Roses that Tim kindly gave me a taste of. The whiskeys in that bottle just had to come from Maryland!. I agree prolonged age might impart it but relatively young straights had it too (the one MikeK reviewed), so... And I think there can be no doubt the Marylanders tried to imitate it where necessary.


Gary

[bourbonv]

John,
You are wrong about one thing - Gary is right there was an unaged version of Monogahela rye. I know this because in the 1860's it was still popular enough that rectifiers imitated it. I think that posted the recipe from this book somewhere here and I will see if I can find it. This should prove valuable because it will also tell us what flavors the recifier considered dominant in the whiskey.

Gary, rectifier recipes might be the best thing to look at when you are looking for tasting notes from the 19th century. They tell us what flavor components they considered crucial for reproducing the flavor from neutral spirits.

[bourbonv]

John,
To back up my point I have this quote from some guy who called himself "Strayed" (whatever happened to that guy anyway?). This is from the thread on Rectifiers and compound whiskey.

"That makes a lot of sense, Mike. This particular thread shows lots of references to Fritz Maytag's concept of rye whiskey (as Monongahela). It's pretty hard to go through Gary's and your posts without accepting that although Mon Whiskey certainly referred to a particular style, color may not have been a defining factor."