In 1972, a young chemical engineer named Larry Ebersold accepted the only job offer he had: a shift supervisor role at a Seagram’s Louisville, Kentucky distillery. He didn’t know much about the company, or even about whiskey. But over the next 37 years, Ebersold would rise through the ranks, spending most of his career at the company’s Lawrenceburg, Indiana distillery now known as MGP.
Along the way, he became synonymous with rye, overseeing the production of a whiskey made from a base of 95 percent rye and 5 percent malted barley. This so-called 95/5 recipe has helped fuel rye’s modern revival. But back in the 1970s when he started, it was far from an easy assignment — rye has long been considered one of the most difficult grains to distill, notorious for its sticky, foamy mash and unpredictable fermentation. Where others avoided it, Ebersold leaned into the challenge, proving it could be made consistently at a large scale.
Now in his mid‑70s, Ebersold has officially “retired” — though he’s continued consulting for a generation of craft distillers who sought out his expertise and opinion. After leaving corporate life, he became one of the most trusted advisors in American whiskey, guiding dozens of craft distilleries through the challenges of scaling production and refining flavor. His clients have included New Riff Distilling, Smooth Ambler, Boone County Distilling Co., Rabbit Hole Distillery, Firestone & Robertson Distilling, Sagamore Spirit, Bardstown Bourbon Company and Castle & Key Distillery.
Courtesy Larry Ebersod
Though he never set out to be a whiskey legend, the nickname “Godfather of Rye” has followed him in recent years. It began when Sagamore, one of the distilleries he advised after retirement, started calling him by that title. A whiskey writer picked it up, and the moniker stuck.
Ebersold is quick to clarify that he didn’t invent the 95/5 rye recipe — Seagram’s research department did — but his plant produced more of it than anyone else. But he and his team in Lawrenceburg were the ones who figured out how to use it to make large volumes, turning a notoriously difficult grain into a consistent spirit. At one point, Lawrenceburg was distilling a million proof gallons a year of rye spirit.
Looking back, Ebersold is proudest of two things: the 95/5 rye that helped bring the category back from obscurity, and the mentoring he’s done for younger distillers. Many cite him as their teacher and the person who showed them how to balance science with their own intuition.
“You have to be vigilant, do the same thing day in and day out, and set the conditions so yeast can thrive,” he says. “But there’s art too — knowing when something tastes off, and how to fix it before it ever leaves the still.”
Distilleries like New Riff, Sagamore, and Middle West have all benefited from his guidance.
In September, Ebersold was inducted into the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame, a capstone to a career that helped shape the taste of American whiskey. His drink of choice remains 100 percent malted rye, a style he first experimented with at Seagram’s in the late 1980s and describes as “like candy — smooth and sweet with all kinds of baking spices in it.” At his Hall of Fame induction, New Riff presented him with a 10‑year‑old bottle of their own malted rye — a nod to both his legacy and the grain’s unlikely rise to prominence.
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He says that even though people don’t believe him because he’s said it before, this is really his last year in the business before he’s “retired-retired.”
“I’ll be 76 at the end of the year, and it’s time for me to quit,” he says.
The distilleries working with him are sure to miss him.
“He’s trained more people than you can count,” says Ryan Lang, CEO and master distiller at Middle West. “The guy knows so much he forgets more than I’ll ever learn in it, and we’re just lucky to be working with him.”
Ebersold explains that as a consultant, he can only recommend, and it’s up to the client if they take his advice.
“Most of the ones that I worked with followed what I was preaching, if you will, but the way I showed them, the way I learned it,” he says. “So they’re making whiskey the way I made it all my career.”
