As much as the story of Empire Rye is the story of New York whiskey, its the story of American whiskey. Farmer-distillers tilling their own land and lovingly crafting whiskey for local consumption. Urban distillers searching for something authentic and connected. A group of committed revolutionaries sharing drinks in a back room, plotting in secret the overthrow of the existing order.
By the mid-1800s, tastes were changing in New York. Rum was out of fashion and whiskey had become the drink of choice. Rye was plentiful in New York, and by the end of the century almost all of the whiskey being produced in the state was whiskey, with other robust regional hubs on the East Coast. This was rye whiskey’s golden age.
While rye whiskey maintained its popularity for the better part of 60 years, rye’s fortunes did not endure. Due in large part to prohibition, and then deliberate neglect thereafter, rye whiskey all but disappeared from not only New York, but most of the U.S. American whiskey production consolidated in Kentucky and, by the 1990s, most of the rye brands were gone and aging stocks of rye were being sold for pennies on the dollar into an anemic market.
However, rye, once written off for dead and eclipsed by a renaissance in bourbon, would begin see the sprouts of its own resurgence in the mid-aughts. As New York invested in craft distilleries, New York distillers set their sights on a grain that not only celebrated New York’s rich distilling heritage, but could also help New York stand apart in a growing whiskey sector.
Fire, Water, and Grain: The Story of Empire Rye is the story of these distillers’ guerrilla campaign to establish Empire Rye as a legal standard in New York whiskey making, and rye as the whiskey making grain of New York. While the concept of terroir in whiskey has become relatively mainstream with new whiskey producers popping up in some surprising geographical locales, New York was one of the first to recognize its commercial potential.
The film is tight and focused, and exceptionally well-directed by Alec and Ryan Balas. Featuring a veritable who’s-who in New York whiskey making, the Balas brothers were able to bring together most of the key figures who played a role in the quest to make the Empire Rye reality — Christopher Briar (Coppersea Distilling), Colin Spoelman (King’s County Distillery), Ralph Erenzo (Tuthilltown Spirits), Allen Katz (New York Distilling), Jason Barret (Black Button Distilling), and Nicole Austin (now at George Dickel), to name a few; with New York Times writer Clay Risen, who followed the Empire Rye movement fro early days, providing an air of objectivity.
As the film explains, Empire Rye is not a specific strain of rye grain, as one might assume, but a set of standards for rye whiskey production in the State of New York, similar to the Bottled-in-Bond Act. To be able to put Empire Rye on a whiskey label, a distiller must adhere to a specific list of regulations: 75% New York grown rye (of any kind, raw or malted); distilled at no more than 160 proof; aged for two years in new charred oak, with an entry proof of no more than 115 proof; and it must mashed, fermented, distilled, and barreled at a single New York distillery.
While this seems reasonably straightforward and uncontroversial, it was neither. The idea for Empire Rye originated during a 2014 distillers conference in Denver, CO, where a group of distillers began talking about the concept of Empire Rye. The plan was kept secret, and not every New York distiller was invited to join. The thinking went that if they strived for consensus among all producers, the efforts would get bogged down in squabbling and ultimately stall at a time when the movement needed momentum with with New York elected officials and administrators.
But as the outrage among peer New York distillers cooled, the wisdom of having a standard for rye in New York, complete with a label from the state was compelling. This was a real move toward turning the clocks back on whiskey, taking production back to a simpler time where America had regional whiskey varieties, regional tastes. Throughout the film there is the sense of needing to look back to find something new.
One of the most refreshing things about Fire, Water, and Grain is that its not just another documentary looking at Bourbon or Scotch as a broad category. The film is specific and tells a compelling story about New York’s tumultuous history with a historical grain. The shots and music are smart and gripping, and the right people were put in front of the camera to regale their individual roles in the Empire Rye experience.
Documentaries about whiskey are getting better, and Fire, Water, and Grain sets a high bar moving forward. Optimistically, with Fire, Water, and Grain’s success, more filmmakers will work to find niche stories in the whiskey world to begin telling a more complete story of a complex and fascinating industry.
