instead of actually making it, and there’s nothing wrong with that—this is a practice that has been around since the start of the American whiskey industry. The problem, at least in many consumers’ eyes, has been a lack of transparency. After all, people like to know where what they are eating or drinking actually comes from.
This isn’t the first time that Sagamore Spirit has had an in-house produced rye, however. The distillery already released a fewryes in select markets that were made onsite, but the new Small Batch Rye is the first one that will be available globally. The main differences are that this whiskey is a blend of ages bottled at 93 proof, as opposed to whiskey from one distilling season bottled at 100 proof as is required by the.
Not every distillery that sources whiskey is going to transition to distilling in-house, and many that do will never give up that part of their business for certain SKUs, which makes sense for consistency’s sake. According to a rep for the brand, Sagamore will eventually make all of its whiskey in-house, although it will take years before that happens.