The story of Old Monongahela lies in the country's rich rye history. (Photo by iStock/paulgeor)The Monongahela River winds its way slowly from West Virginia to Pittsburgh, where it merges with the Allegheny to become the Ohio River. Centuries ago, farmer-distillers worked the Monongahela Valley, growing and it into a distinct style of whiskey that took the region’s name. Monongahela rye was the first American whiskey style to gain widespread recognition, both here and abroad. It became notorious due to an uprising among its distillers on the western frontier. The Whiskey Rebellion pushed back against taxation, and was quelled at the command of President George Washington.Originally an unaged product, the regional whiskey gained a meaningful prefix once people became familiar with the delicious, red-hued barrel-aged version: “Old” Monongahela. In fact, in 1794, while trying to mediate a confrontation with the rebels, former state assemblyman Hugh Henry Brackenridge explicitly referred to the whiskey’s barrel-aging: “The people were mad.
It never came into my head to use force on the occasion. I thought it safest to use good words and good drink, rather than balls and powder. It cost me four barrels of old whiskey that day, and I would rather spare that than a quart of blood.” ( Papers Relating to What is Known as the Whiskey Insurrection in Western Pennsylvania 1794, Pennsylvania Archives, Second Series, Volume IV, 1896)But what defines the style of Monongahela rye? There are five historic factors. Todd Leopold (right) and farmers Scott Schlagel and Paul Schlagel inspect rye grains in the field.Therein lies the distinction. While the column still is often used to create lighter alcohols, the three-chamber still inherently produces a heavier spirit with character that holds up during aging.
Vintage Old Overholt print ads refer to the whiskey as “heavy-bodied” and “one of the heartiest of all bonded rye whiskies.”MaturationThe final factor in defining Old Monongahela rye involves the aging regimen. Virtually all large whiskey of the region were made of stone or brick, or a combination of both.
While the warehouses had multiple stories, they did not include ricks for barrel storage, as are found in modern. Instead, barrels would be hoisted onto each floor and lined up single file on wooden runners, with two more runners placed atop the line. Another row of barrels would be rolled on top, and a third layer completed the arrangement.Distillers practiced climate control in their warehouses during colder months. Steam was fed through serpentine pipes along one or more walls, keeping the warehouse temperature at no less than 70 degrees year-round.
This environment continually forced the whiskey deeper into the barrel staves, increasing interaction with the wood.Writing in 1914, A.H. Hanauer of the Philip Hamburger Distillery of Brownsville mentions their use of a three-chamber still and describes the “massive warehouses heated by steam, so that there is a perpetual summer, and the goods are much more rapidly than in the olden times.”It sounds a bit counterintuitive to the Kentucky philosophy of allowing nature to control the temperature, enabling the whiskey to move in and out of the wood, but there was certainly a reason Pennsylvania’s rye distillers stuck to their more costly practice. They, and their customers, felt it made a distinctly different and better whiskey. Already in decline by the enactment of national Prohibition in 1919, rye whiskey fell out of favor during the dry years, when the available spirits tended toward vodka, gin, and lighter Canadian whiskies. Though it returned after Repeal, it never gained traction and was gone by the 1950s.
Modern Monongahela RyeThe legacy of Old Monongahela continues to influence a new generation of distillers. In my research, I’ve found that Monongahela rye had two distinct subsets. “Pure rye” whiskey usually indicated a of rye and barley malt—“pure” simply meant unadulterated.
“All rye” whiskey was made from rye only, a portion of which was malted. Some modern distillers feel that saying “pure” might be interpreted by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) as requiring all rye in the mash.
That’s the reason David Perkins, founder of High West Distillery in Utah, chose an all-rye when he set out to replicate the unaged style in his OMG (Old Monongahela) Pure Rye. Label from an “all rye whiskey” made in the Monongahela Valleyin Denver commissioned Vendome Copper & Brass to construct the first three-chamber still built since Prohibition, although their Maryland-style rye includes some corn, unlike true Monongahela. Todd Leopold says, “A three-chamber still is entirely different from a pot still, and I can understand why, operationally speaking, it fell out of favor. You cannot walk away from the still at any time, because everything happens so quickly. From the time you apply steam until the time you have heads is about two minutes.
From there you are directly into hearts. So every 20 minutes you have finished new make, ready for dilution and barrel entry.”Leopold goes to all the trouble of using the authentic still, because the end result is worth it for its unique qualities. “The whiskey itself is like nothing I’ve ever tasted.
Think of a beer column at every large American or rye plant. The column is designed so that from the time the beer enters, descends the column where steam strips the alcohol and out, and exits the stripper is 90 seconds—90 seconds of steam contact to get all those congeners out of the fermented mash. A full three-chamber still run drawing, and applies steam to each chamber for about 20 minutes.
From there the bottom chamber is emptied to stillage, and gravity is used to move the fermented mash in each chamber down one position, with a beer well topping off the top chamber. What this means is that each ‘charge’ of fermented rye mash has 3 times 20 minutes of steam applied to it, for a total of 60 minutes. This yields an oil-rich, soft distillate that is nothing like the fiery you get straight off a beer stripper.”Herman Mihalich of Mountain Laurel Spirits near Philadelphia, which makes, grew up in Monessen, a working-class Monongahela River town, and his family ran a bar where Pennsylvania rye was the whiskey of choice. Dad’s Hat’s whiskey pays tribute to the “pure rye” style of Old Monongahela, using only rye, barley malt, and a bit of malted rye. The standard offering, a standout example of a heavy-bodied modern rye, won Whisky Advocate’s.Monongahela is not a style defined by the TTB, and although some distillers in its home territory are now using the Monongahela moniker, nobody is crafting a whiskey that adheres to all five historic points of definition. But as the craft distilling movement continues to grow, the rebirth of authentic Monongahela rye seems inevitable—and someday we’ll once again be able to taste America’s first whiskey.Sam Komlenic is a whiskey historian and the copy editor for Whisky Advocate magazine.
Key Difference: Whiskey or whisky is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage made from any form of fermented grain mash. Depending on the geographical region or type of whiskey that is being made, whiskey can be made from barley, malted barley, rye, malted rye, wheat, and corn. Brandy, short for brandywine is a sprit that is distilled from wine, grapes and other fruit juices. The word ‘brandywine’ is derived from the Dutch word ‘brandewijn’ meaning “burnt wine”. Brandies are more commonly considered as an after-dinner drink and can contain alcohol by volume (ABV) between 35% and 60%.Brandy and whiskey are two completely different drinks and to categorize them as the same would be injustice. Blaze clockwork gray rar. They are two different kinds of drinks, with different flavors, taste, process, etc.
People that abstain from drinking would consider any type of drink as just an alcoholic beverage, but fine drinkers would argue that each drink has a distinct different taste, aroma, flavor, etc. To them, each drink is special in its own sense. Whiskey and Brandy even differ in the ingredients that are used to process them.Whiskey or whisky is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage made from any form of fermented grain mash. Depending on the geographical region or type of whiskey that is being made, whiskey can be made from barley, malted barley, rye, malted rye, wheat, and corn. They are often aged in charred barrels.
According to Wikipedia, the word ‘whiskey’ is the anglicisation of the Gaelic word ‘uisce uisge’ meaning “water”. Distilled water was known in Latin as aqua vitae meaning “water of life”. The process of distillation can be dated back to the Greeks in Alexandria around the 3rd century AD; however they did not distill alcohol only spirits for fragrance purposes.
The distillation process was passed down through the ages to Italy in the 13th century AD where the first distillation process of alcohol took place and alcohol was distilled from wine. The alcohol was originally used for medicinal purposes before it become consumable as a beverage. Whiskey first become popular as a beverage in Scotland before it spread to other neighboring countries.There are various different types of whiskey and they differ in terms of base product, alcoholic content and quality. The main two types include malt whisky and grain whisky. Malt whisky is made primarily from malted barley, while grain whisky is made from any type of grain. Malting is when the grain is put under the process of germination.
Germination requires the barley being placed in water for a certain amount of time and being constantly turned to ensure proper soaking. Whiskies can further be classified under:. Single malt whisky: is whisky that is from a single distillery and is made from a mash that uses only one particular type of malted grain. Blended malt whisky: is a blend of different malt whiskies from different distilleries. Blended whiskies: is whiskey that is made from a mixture of malt and grain whiskies along with neutral spirits, caramel, and flavoring. Cask strength: These whiskies are bottled directly from the cask and are undiluted or only a little diluted.
These are rare whiskies. Single cask: Each bottle of a single barrel whiskey is from an individual cask with the cask number labeled on the bottle.Whiskies must be strengthened and aged in a barrel.
They do not mature in the bottle, hence if a person keeps the whiskey bottle over a long time, it would not become any stronger in flavor or alcohol content. The alcohol content and mash content varies depending on the regulations of the geographic region.
The whiskies require a charred oak barrel during the aging process, which provides them with the golden brown and amber coloring. Additional flavors and colors can be added to the alcohol depending on the regulations.Brandy, short for brandywine is a sprit that is distilled from wine, grapes and other fruit juices. The word ‘brandywine’ is derived from the Dutch word ‘brandewijn’ meaning “burnt wine”. Brandies are more commonly considered as an after-dinner drink and can contain alcohol by volume (ABV) between 35% and 60%.
The origins of brandy can be dated back to the development of distillation to ancient Greece and Rome. However, modern brandy can be dated back to the 12 th century. Brandies are made using grapes or any fruits that can produce a sugary juice. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, brandy can also be used to refer to spirit made from pomace and other fermented fruit. However, if the brandy is made from any other fruit instead of grapes, many countries require it to be labeled as ‘fruit brandy’, ‘fruit spirit’, or the name of the fruit should be mentioned on the bottle. The regulations for producing and labeling differ depending on the jurisdiction.The process of producing brandy requires fermenting the wine, fruit juice or grapes for 4-5 days after which they are distilled, using either pot-stills or column-still, before they are put into casks for aging. There is no set time required for aging as some fruit juices do not require aging.
The aging process determines the color of the brandy; if it is not aged the brandy is colorless or clear and the longer it is aged the stronger the color of the brandy. Some brandy may also be added with caramel to adjust the color and the flavor of the beverage. Distillation must differ depending on the type of brandy being produced.
For example, wine with ABV 8% to 12% and high acidity is boiled in a pot still. Brandy made from grapes also requires being distilled twice or more to acquire the required aroma and flavor.Brandy is labeled in a certain way that shows the quality of the brandy. Labels include A.C. (aged 2 years), V.S. (very special, aged 3 years), V.S.O.P. (Very Superior Old Pale, aged at least 5 years), X.O. (Extra Old, aged at least 6 years), Vintage (the label shows the date it was placed into the cask) and Hors d'age (Too old to determine age, commonly more than 10 years).
Other names for brandy include cognac and Armagnac, named after the place they were produced.