American whiskey American whiskey American whiskey is a distilled beverage produced in the United States from a fermented mash of cereal grain. The primary types of spirit included under this designation are bourbon whiskey, rye whiskey, rye malt whiskey, malt whiskey, wheat whiskey, Tennessee whiskey, and corn whiskey. All of these are made from mashes with at least 51% of their named grains. Also included are blended whiskeys, blends of straight whiskeys, grain whiskeys, and spirit whiskeys, which do not specify a dominant grain. In the case of blends, American whiskeys may include artificial colors and flavorings. Laws regulating the above products
Rye whiskey be further designated as "straight", as in "straight rye whiskey". Rye whiskey was historically the prevalent whiskey in the northeastern states, especially Pennsylvania and Maryland. Pittsburgh was the center of rye whiskey production in the late 1700s and early 1800s. By 1808, Allegheny County farmers were selling one half barrel for each man, woman and child in the country. By the 1880s, Joseph F. Sinnott's distillery, Moore and Sinnott, located in Monongahela was the single largest producer of rye whiskey, with a capacity of 30,000 barrels a year. Rye whiskey largely disappeared after Prohibition. A few brands, such as Old