It was like a fistfight to sell the stuff years ago,” says Joe Magliocco, the presidentof Michter’s Distillery in Louisville. He is talking about the early aughts, when rye was still considered a fusty, outmoded whiskey that interested few. On sales calls, he’d hear, “Who the hell wants a ten-year-old rye?” That’s all changed now.
Michter’s pours up the long history of