RYE - contents and headache

[Vital]

Looking for some enlightenment in world of rye bourbons.

1. What exactly does it mean when RYE is written on the bottle?? (Jim Beam Rye, Mitchell’s Rye, Redemption Rye….)
A lot of bourbons have rye in them but they don’t have it written on the bottle. Do they write RYE when whiskey is made of 100% rye instead of corn and other ingredients?

2. I love spicy taste of rye (when RYE is written on the bottle) but every time I drink it I always end up with insane headache in the morning. And I’m not talking about getting wasted, I’m talking about 2-3 drinks (1-2oz each) during or after dinner. I’m barely buzzed when I go to bed yet when I wake up it feels like I was at some college party drinking all the cheap crap I’m handed. Headache is like no other, I never get it from non-ryes. Anyone else get that??

[WhiskeyBro]

Rye whiskey is whiskey which is at least 51% distilled Rye spirit. The rest can be corn, barley, etc.

Bourbon must contain at least 51% corn spirit.

The two are totally different.

[gauze]

my friend Nick complains about banging hangovers when he drinks rye too, must be some genetic thing.

[RandyG]

I had a friend who could not drink beer because he was alergic to the hops. It might be possible that you have the same disagreement with the rye grain? Just a thought.

Cheers,
Randy

[gillmang]

Rye and bourbon are two sides of the same coin. At one time and still to a degree, the rye component of a bourbon mash was very high, so that kind of whiskey tended to a rye whiskey palate. Take, say, Old Gran-dad and Basil Hayden, it says bourbon on the label but I'd guess in a shoot-out especially blind with Rittenhouse rye, say, the differences would be not so striking. Clearly at the extremes of these drinks - a very low rye bourbon, a very high-rye rye whiskey, a difference of style is evident, but for practical purposes these drinks are on a single continuum for many: it isn't always clear when one starts and the other ends.

As for strong hangovers from rye whiskey, I can't account for that and have never experienced anything similar. With anything I drink it is simply the amount of alcohol taken in that will have a nefarious effect or (usually) not - tequila, absinthe, Old Forester, Miller Lite, double IPAs - doesn't matter.

However, I can understand that peoples' individual systems might react differently to the chemical compounds in the rye grain - botanically quite similar to wheat I understand - this is entirely possible.

Gary

[jeffnyc]

I was relieved to find I'm not the only one with debilitating headaches from small amounts of rye. Just like the poster here, after drinking only ~4oz of rye (bulleit), I awoke the next day with a life-
destroying headache that lasted for over 24hrs. Wtf? I'm a 'seasoned' drinker, and it would normally take a dozen or more drinks with mixing for me to feel that way.

It must be some sort of allergic intolerance to rye. It seems rye might have a uniquely 'risky' profile in that it cannot be tolerated by a number of people. I've never heard of other spirit types with this unfortunate characteristic...

Any others out there? And perhaps any ideas on specific rye brands that might be more easily tolerated?