- Julia Thiel
Templeton Rye has been in the news a lot lately. Bryce T. Bauer’s book Gentlemen Bootleggers: The True Story of Templeton Rye, Prohibition, and a Small Town in Cahoots was released in July, the same month that the Daily Beast published an article by Eric Felten titled “Your ‘Craft’ Rye Whiskey Is Probably From a Factory Distillery in Indiana.” (My review of the book is here.) And yesterday the Des Moines Register reported that a Chicago-based law firm had filed a class-action lawsuit against Templeton Rye on the grounds that the company “broke consumer protection laws and misled drinkers with stories of its whiskey’s prohibition-era origins.”
The issue, it seems, is with deceptive advertising. Some companies readily admit that their product is made elsewhere; Blaum Bros. Distilling in Galena sells Knotter Bourbon (pronounced “not our bourbon”), which the product description explains was not made by them. And Chicago’s CH Distillery has taken a similar approach, printing the words “We didn’t make this, but you can still love it” on its bourbon bottles. Both distilleries are new and haven’t had time to age their own whiskeys yet, though they’re in the process of doing so. But while that whiskey sits in barrels, the distilleries are selling their own vodkas, gins, and other products along with whiskey made by other distilleries.
Does it matter that Templeton Rye isn’t made at Templeton? Or that WhistlePig is distilled in Canada, not on the picturesque farm prominently featured on its website? That depends who you ask—but demand for more transparency in the labeling of whiskey is increasing. Federal regulations don’t allow companies to print on product labels that they’ve distilled the product if they haven’t, but they can say they’ve produced it (“produced by” and “bottled by” are common phrases on labels for whiskey that’s been purchased from another distiller). And if the whiskey is distilled in a different state than the one where the brand is located, regulations dictate that the state where the whiskey is distilled must be printed on the label.
