Mashbill vs. Taste Profile

 Mashbill vs. Taste Profile

One aspect of whiskey that intrigues me is how the grain bill (or percentage of grains used to make the whiskey) affects the flavor. The further I’ve gone down the rabbit hole learning about whiskey production, the more I’m fascinated by the many factors that can affect how a whiskey tastes. (If you want to know more about that, check out my article on terroir in bourbon, which covers the many aspects of production that affect flavor.) What really gets my mind wandering is the fact that a grain recipe may seem to point toward a certain taste profile, but the taste doesn’t seem to match what you may expect. As I’ve tasted more and more products, I realize that there are different styles of the same whiskey, but the grain recipe may not always match what you may expect the flavor to be, and this is so intriguing to me.

What really got me thinking about this was rye whiskey. Early on in my whiskey journey, I remember YouTube recommendations for “Kentucky style rye”  which just meant sweeter rye whiskeys. The reasons they were considered ‘sweeter’ was the large contribution of corn to the mashbill. In order to be a rye whiskey, it has to be at least 51% rye grain, but the rest of the grain can be whatever the distiller decides. Another example of styles of rye whiskey comes from the early days of the United States. The settlers started making whiskey from rye, America’s first whiskey. Two styles of rye whiskey emerged: Pennsylvania Style, known for it’s spicier qualities, and Maryland Style, know to be a little sweeter. Pennsylvania was known for using just two grains: rye and malted barley. And example of grain percentages was 80% rye, 20% malted barley. An example of a Maryland mashbill was 53% rye, 33% corn, 14% malted barley. Kentucky style rye is basically Maryland style. 

The category can actually be simplified further to sweet ryes, and spicy ryes; this is typically what the main designations are. They are not necessarily advertised this way, but it is how we end up categorizing them. Rye whiskey is known for it’s spicy qualities already, so the addition of corn to the mashbill is what usually counters the spiciness. If you think about bourbon, it is majority corn or at least 51% corn, which is why bourbon is known for it’s sweetness. So if corn is added to the grain recipe, than logically it should be a little bit sweeter. On the other hand, if there is less corn, or even no corn added at all to the rye whiskey, than you might think it would be very spicy. In some cases it is, but in others, it might sweet in a different way. There really is no definite correlation between the mashbill and the flavor. As a consumer, this can make purchasing more difficult, but it is intriguing that the grains used to make the whiskey may not always be what you taste in the end product. 

Another example of this is when tasting different types of whiskeys all from the same category, say rye whiskey, there can be lots of different flavor to expect. You might taste one whiskey where the barrel aging process contributed to more of the flavor. In another, the grain may be the main contributor to the flavor, and in another case, the yeast strain used to make the whiskey may have a large effect on how it tastes. Each distillery may have a different vision for how they want their product to taste, and they can determine this by the different decisions made in the production process. For an extreme example, let’s say a rye whiskey made with 100% rye grain, ends up tasting super sweet, citrusy and fruity, a hint of spiciness, and lots of oak flavor. Another rye whiskey is made with 51% rye, 37% corn, and 12% malted barley, and it tastes like rye bread, with lots of baking spice, and also some slight sweet caramel flavor. In theory, the mashbill with higher rye might lead you to believe that the flavor would be very spicy and not sweet, and the mashbill with lower rye may lead you to believe it would be very sweet with less spice. But in this case, it’s flipped. That’s what is so fascinating about it all. A whiskey made up of mostly one particular grain may not necessarily taste like that grain.

This goes for other whiskeys as well. Wheated bourbon is one of the latest growing trends in bourbon, even though it’s been around for a while. Typically bourbon is made with corn, rye, and malted barley. What ‘Wheated bourbon’ designates is the distillery has switched rye for wheat in the mashbill. Why do this? Well, generally, if rye is usually spicier, wheat is usually softer and more sweet. This lends to a more ‘smooth’ drinking experience. Think less prickliness as a tactile sensation while drinking the whiskey. Reminder, this is not always the case, but generally this is why it’s appealing. A popular example of wheated bourbon is Weller, made by Buffalo Trace Distillery. Now to me personally, I don’t really taste the wheat grain at all in their products, but in another wheated bourbon like Ben Holliday out of Missouri, I taste a little more of the wheat grain. Depending on your preference, you might gravitate toward one versus the other; one is not necessarily better than the other. Just because a bourbon is made with wheat doesn’t mean it won’t have spice, and one with rye will, this is just a general example of why one might be swapped for the other.

So far we’ve looked at how the makeup of grains may not always correlate to the flavor of a whiskey. If we look at Scotch whiskey, different taste profiles come from the same type of grain, which in the case of a Single Malt Scotch is 100% malted barley. I don’t think many people think they are tasting barley when they drink Scotch, they are more so thinking fruits, and chocolate, or maybe peat smoke. Scotch whiskey has been made for hundreds of years with unbelievable amounts of flavor variation all from 100% malted barley. This can be from the same factors as American whiskeys. Rye whiskey and other American whiskeys like Bourbon, have just as much potential for variation, if not more since there are different types of grain involved. With different types of grain, and varieties of each grain, the flavor possibilities are already vast before you add on the complexity of how the distillery decides to make it. 

Ultimately, I thought it would be fun to point out that whiskey has such variation in how it can taste especially within styles like rye and bourbon, which is so cool. Along with that, the mashbill can be misleading at times. The fact that we can’t always know what were going to get based on the grain recipe used to make the whiskey could be a point of frustration, but mostly it should be a point of fascination. It will be interesting to see how innovation drives these categories forward and pushes the limits for what our ideas of how whiskey can taste based on the grains used to make it.

Saturday, June 14, 2025

Article by: Drew Martin