Templeton Rye 4 Year is the brand's flagship, the bottling that introduced most drinkers to a name steeped in Prohibition lore. The story goes that during the dry years, the farmers of Templeton, Iowa quietly made some of the country's best bootleg rye — "the good stuff," the kind that found its way to Al Capone's tables. Whether the modern liquid in the bottle has any direct genealogical link to that contraband is another question, but the mythology is potent and the whiskey is genuinely well-made.
Built on a high-rye mashbill, the 4 Year is bottled at 80 proof and aimed squarely at the cocktail-and-easy-sipping crowd. It pours a light gold and opens with a clean, grain-forward nose — fresh rye, soft vanilla, mint leaf, and that telltale dusting of pepper. There's no shouting here, no heavy oak. It's a young rye and proud of it.
The palate follows suit: light and crisp, with toffee sweetness, ginger heat, herbal green notes, and a flash of orange zest before the rye spice settles in. It's not a complicated whiskey, but it's an honest one. The lower proof keeps everything approachable, which is exactly the point.
This is the rye I'd build a Whiskey Sour around, or pour for someone who's been drinking bourbon and wants to dip a toe into rye's drier, peppier world. It's a bottle that knows its job and does it cleanly — the entry point to a brand whose older expressions reward you for sticking around.
