Distiller Magazine
The Spirit of Rye author Carlo DeVito
Rye is America’s phoenix-from-the-ashes craft spirit, from 7 labels in 2000 to hundreds today. What spawned its rebound?
By David Furer
Carlo DeVito is a lifelong publishing executive whose clients have included adult beverage authors Kevin Zraly, Matt Kramer, Oz Clarke, Clay Rison, Salvatore Calabrese, Jim Meehan, and other authors such as Stephen Hawking, Dan Rather, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Michael Lewis, EO Wilson; six substantial sports biographies and several books about Charles Dickens and Mark Twain. He’s authored more than 20 books including East Coast Wineries: From Maine to Virginia, Big Whiskey, The Spirit of Rye, and The New Single Malt Whiskey (June/July 2022). His latest work is entitled the 666pp. The Spirit of Rye (Cider Mill Press Book Publishers, $35 https://carlodevito.wordpress.com)
So, with quite the background both in editing and writing, he followed editing stints with Gary Regan, Michael Jackson and Wine Spectator — starting its entire book program — with this natural career progression into writing about spirits with Philadelphia’s Running Press publishing his first bourbon companion in the late ‘90s.
“As a teenager I would ride my bike past a place called Cream Ridge Winery in New Jersey. Tom Amibile was an older gentleman and could not have been nicer and introduced me to winemaking. He couldn’t grow a vine worth a damn but he made some lovely fruit wines and showed me how he did it and I was hooked,” he told me. “As I aged, I started to appreciate fine wines and Buz Teacher, the owner of Running Press, introduced me to some really incredible wines that were then coming out of California and Europe” he continued.
He later witnessed that rye whiskies were on the brink of extinction, so researched its nascent comeback and its origins to better understand the quickening rebirth of what he views as a ‘quintessential American’ spirit. “In the early 2000s they were seven ryes made while today there are hundreds. The cast of characters was so fascinating and wide ranging from LeNell’s Beverage Boutique and Red Hook Whiskey in Alabama to Ralph Erenzo at New York’s Tutthilltown Distillery.”
The Spirit of Rye commences by detailing its birth in the North American colony with grains brought to it by early Dutch and German settlers, touches upon the prevalence of beers made from it, cites the importance of the new United States of America’s first president to its development, continues in chronicling the nascent US’s first populist rebellion named for this dominant spirit made primarily by small farmers somewhat in conflict with city merchants warehousing it, delineates what were and are generally-applied state ‘styles’, provides due diligence in noting how Prohibition helped to engender its eventual decline, and gives encapsulated information on no less than 38 strains of the grain. The How Is Rye Whiskey Made? section runs through mash and wash, fermenting vessels, distilling, barrels (including char levels) before providing insights into white ryes, malted ryes, and rock and rye.
The majority of its content is devoted to sections tracing contemporary producers in the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, West, and finishes with Canada with some of the most influential, or least his favorite, individual distillers profiled.
This full-color compendium, filled with photos as well as text, is a must-have for any serious lover and/or producer of North America’s rye whiskies. •
David Furer - Since 1991 New York resident David Furer's work with spirits has included stints managing Chicago's Midwest Int'l. Spirits Exposition and BTI's World Spirits Championships; writing and editing for Sommelier Journal, Santé, Germany's Der Whiskey Botschafter, the UK's harpers; and judging for Concours Mondial du Bruxelles. He's also an Advanced Sommelier with the Court of Master Sommeliers, and has managed bars in London England.