Can Whiskey Drinkers Tell the Difference Between Bourbon and Rye?

A few years ago there was a big hullabaloo about people not being able to tell the difference between Bourbon and Rye. This stemmed from a study done by some folks at Drexel University and consisted of average people given the task of grouping 10 blind spirits based on how they smelled. The members of the Southern California Whiskey Club (SCWC) are anything but average so we decided to put it to the test and see if seasoned whiskey drinkers can tell the difference between bourbon and rye by actually tasting the liquid.

Before getting into what we did and how we did it, I want to point out that the original study, and its resulting headline-grabbing conclusion, don’t show exactly what the “scandalous” headlines said it did. The original study gave folks 10 spirits and told them to group them into 2-9 groups based on how they saw fit to group them. The researchers did NOT ask them to group them into rye vs bourbon.

They did this experiment twice with the same group of people and randomized labels and then ran a statistical analysis on the outcome. The outcome was that people tended to group the whiskeys based on either brand profile, age or ABV. When given no instructions other than “group them”, this seems like a reasonable outcome to how people might group them and demonstrates how powerful distillery character, oak influence and alcohol content are – especially when blind tasting.

To seasoned whiskey drinkers these groupings make complete sense because those three groups are primarily how we talk about American whiskey: the distillery, the age and the ABV. This all seems reasonable and even expected until you get to the ridiculous headlines pulled from the study; that those groupings mean “people can’t tell the difference between bourbon and rye”. A conclusion that is anything but reasonable.

If you want to see how humans will tend to group things, then test for that. Don’t test for one and then yell the conclusion to the other. It would be like designing a test to see if people will group wine based on their price points and then shouting that people can’t tell the difference between Merlot and Chianti when you see how they were grouped.

When left to their own devices, humans will just do what their senses tell them makes sense. How tannic is the wine, how oaky, how fruit-forward, what dominant flavors they get, etc. If you want to test for something specific, test for something specific.

Another silly, duh, point that was thrown around in the literature and resulting articles is that the only thing separating bourbon from rye is a 2% difference in the mash bill (51% corn vs 51% rye). And this is true on the legal-definition side, but it’s a different story on the practical side. Rye mash bills range from 51% rye to 100% rye and bourbon from 51% corn to 80%+ corn. And on top of all of that you have the new oak adding its own spice and character to the mix.

Tell any seasoned whiskey drinker that most people, including themselves, probably can’t tell the difference between a 6-year-old, low-rye, rye whiskey (51% rye) and a 6-year-old, high-rye bourbon (36%+ rye), and their response will be “yeah, no shit”… especially when at cask strength and/or from the same distillery. This should be blatantly obvious to anyone with a breadth of drinking experience and an ounce of humility.

But it does beg the question, where does the line exist and does experience matter? Can seasoned whiskey drinkers tell the difference between bourbon and rye? Especially if they get to drink them… as you normally do with whiskey.

During the pandemic, the SCWC has held two mega bourbon and rye tastings of 20 samples each and were an extension of some of our previous tastings. We used nearly the same group for all of these and for a refresher, here are links to the recent tastings and the results as well as the recaps of the previous bourbon and rye blinds.

20 Blind Bourbons: Continuing The SCWC Experiment
20 Blind Ryes: A Virtual Experiment With the SCWC
SCWC 8 Blind Bourbons
SoCal Whiskey Club: 8 Blind Ryes Tasting

Now, let’s talk about the experiment.

Bourbon vs Rye: The Experiment

Instead of just telling our members to free-form it, and then pull wild conclusions from a mess of human decision making, we gave them a challenge and an objective. We wanted to know if these seasoned whiskey drinkers can tell the difference between bourbon and rye, and they did too. The SCWC members are a curious lot.

To facilitate this, we (Mike, Rich, Marshall and I) took 10 bourbons and 10 ryes, that had never been in previous tastings, and broke them down into equal-sized samples for the members. We had a variety of mash bills, distilleries, ages, ABVs and even threw in a few cask finishes to see what that did to the group’s perception of the spirit.

And, before you say it, YES, I know the absolute best way to do this would be to limit all the variables down to getting similar age and similar ABV and not let the group know how many bourbons or ryes were in the total. That’s a more arduous undertaking from a sourcing standpoint and would also require we duplicate past whiskeys. That said, a follow-up in that style is already being planned.

Consider this tasting, kind of, like a baseline. We wanted to see which side of the line they put things on knowing there are 10 of each in the sample set. As stated above, to further dive into this question we have more blinds coming that will further limit the variables. We want to keep drilling into this and other drinking topics.

But, circling back to this tasting, let’s have a quick recap of the setup before we jump into the results. I know the results are all you really care about, but here’s a quick, high-level view, of the tasting setup to give a clear picture of what the group was up against.

The members knew there were 10 bourbons and 10 ryes in the group of samples.
They didn’t have a single clue as to what bourbons or ryes were in the lineup and received blinded samples only labeled with a letter.
We used a variety of mash bills, ages, ABVs, producers, and a few cask finishes as curious curveballs.
None of the whiskeys used had ever shown up in a previous SCWC tasting.
We asked the members to choose between Bourbon or Rye and also rate the spirit from 1 to 5 points.
They had a week and a half to make their guesses and then we collected the answers via Zoom polls.

And NOW, let’s see how this all turned out.

Can Whiskey Drinkers Tell the Difference Between Bourbon and Rye?

Bourbon vs Rye: The Results

Can Whiskey Drinkers Tell Bourbon from Rye?

SAMPLEABVAGEMASH (C,R,M)WHISKEY NAMEBOURBONRYESCORE

E474+0, 95, 5Redemption Rum Cask81560

F46684, 10, 6Bib & Tucker 6 Years16759

G5830, 95, 5Old Pepper Kentucky Oak101370

H43451+ CCalumet Bourbon15857

I43427, 63, 10Old Grand-Dad19458

J48.540, 95, 5Pinhook Rye41963

K45.450, 100, 0Coalition Margaux131050

L59.65551+ C**Barrell Bourbon New Years16767

M46660, 36, 4Pepper 6 Years Bourbon15860

N46.5320, 70, 10FEW Rye81567

O302.50, 95, 5Redemption Rye51862

P58.35451+ R***Barrell Rye121164

Q48451, 45, 4****Redemption Wheated16768

R45.3468, 20, 12****Rebel Reserve20370

S478+75, 13, 12Elijah Craig Small Batch14973

T40451+ CJ.R. Ewing Bourbon16756

U45NAS0, 100, 0Hillrock Estate Rye101354

V48.34+30, 60, 10*Sagamore Double Oak131076

W47.150, 100, 0Coalition Sauternes51851

X43351+ CBreckenridge Bourbon14962

*Mash is unknown, going off of estimates
**Unknown, but contains corn, rye, wheat, malt
***Unknown blend of ryes
****Wheat instead of rye
(min score possible is 23, max is 115)

What I find interesting about this tasting is that the majority of our group, for a majority of the whiskeys, got it right and bucketed the bourbons with the bourbons and the ryes with the ryes – even the cask finishes (wine/rum) didn’t throw them off too badly. What threw them off the most was when it came to the craft whiskeys and double oak finishes.

For the crafty ones, many said they just flipped a coin and/or bucketed them into what they had left in their 10 v 10 slots after picking the ones they were certain on. I’ve complained about the woody/cardboardy craft profile for years, and that it all tastes the same because of that profile, and it was evident this sentiment was echoed by SCWC member’s commentary. So here the inability to tell isn’t the mash bill, but the maturation process.

For the double oak finishes, it was the super heavy oak profile that moved most to thinking it was bourbon instead of rye. Again, this isn’t a commentary on not being able to tell bourbon from rye, but a commentary on what their past experience with bourbon led them to choose when done blind. It’s a commentary on sensory perception and olfactory association and recall.

If you’re not familiar, “double oak” is where a second round of new oak is employed to give a deeper oaky profile and “extra mature” the whiskey. It was these deeper oak and wood spice notes that nearly split the group on each and gave folks a harder time figuring out where to bucket them based on what they perceive as bourbon or rye based on their experience. And, again, this isn’t a commentary on the inability to tell apart the mash bills, but a commentary on the maturation process.

The last one that threw people for a loop was the Barrell Rye which uses rye from all over the world and was the second-highest proof. So take from that what you will.

In summation, I think the headline-grabbing conclusion from the Drexel study is crap. The study doesn’t show that people can’t tell the difference between bourbon and rye, because that’s not what it was designed to do. It just gives insight into how humans will tend to group spirits when left to their own devices and on smell alone. It’s a commentary on the natural tendencies of human grouping, not on their inability to tell one thing from another, and that’s it.

This first SCWC blind study, designed to actually step towards the question, was awesome and showed that, for the most part, whiskey drinkers can tell bourbon from rye when done blind. We’ll definitely be revisiting this theme again, but with fewer variables and even less knowledge about what’s in the tasting to truly hone in on this myth. This was just a first step, and what a fun step it was.

Hope you enjoyed this recap of the event and the results of our group. Cheers!