A Small Distillery, In A Small City, Made The World’s Best Rye Whiskey

Red Deer is a city of just over 100,000 people. And yet, a distillery there made the world’s best rye whiskey.

GrainHenge Arrowwood was named Best Rye at the 2025 World Whiskies Awards. The World Whiskies Awards name a best rye from each country, with the country winners then being judged against each other. The best of these best is awarded the title of World’s Best Rye. GrainHenge was the Best Canadian Rye, and went on to beat rye whiskies from the United States, Ireland, Australia, Denmark, Netherlands, England, France, Germany, Scotland, Spain and Sweden to capture the top title.

How They Did It

The team behind GrainHenge is no stranger to success. GrainHenge is the sibling whiskey brand of Troubled Monk Brewery which, in 2016, captured silver for American brown ale at the World Beer Cup—the world’s largest beer competition—with its Open Road American Brown Ale.

It’s no coincidence that Troubled Monk won the award for a malt-forward beer style. Red Deer, home of Troubled Monk and GrainHenge, is situated in the heart of North America’s barley belt. Alberta grows more barley than all of America, and much of it is grown in the area around the city, centrally located in Alberta.

“We were born as craft brewers,” said Charlie Bredo, President and co-founder of GrainHenge and of Troubled Monk, in a telephone interview. “We started GrainHenge when we realized we had a great opportunity to make great whiskey with our knowledge of grain and beer.”

Troubled Monk has a history of playing with malt, working with new barley varieties and local maltsters to experiment with grains, including examining terroir. This intimate knowledge of brewing ingredients was GrainHenge’s secret weapon in creating world-class whiskey.

Indeed, the GrainHenge name is an homage to the grain elevators that used to dot the Alberta landscape. Each GrainHenge product is named after a former grain elevator.

“Whiskey has a lot of tradition,” said Bredo. “We kind of said, ‘Let’s take the gloves off and take a creative approach to whiskey.’”

“Arrowwood is made using 100% rye. This is less common than many people think,” said Garret Haynes, master distiller at GrainHenge and who also brewed the World-Beer-Cup-medal-winning Troubled Monk beer, via email. “We use a mix of flaked rye and malted rye. I feel that I get different flavours from each one, and they seem to behave a little differently in the brewhouse.”

“We lauter our mash to get a clear wash so we are not fermenting on grain,” said Haynes. “We also allow the fermentation to occur a little cooler and slower than many washes. The wash itself tastes quite nice with spicy notes and a slight tartness. We have experimented with a wide variety of barrels for our rye and this gives us plenty of tools to work with when selecting our barrels to blend for each release.”

Why They Did It

“Canadian whiskey is known for not being the most flavorful spirit,” said Bredo. “So we took traditional Canadian rye and are making it into something flavorful and unique. We took what we like from whiskey from around the world and are making a better Canadian whiskey.”

In 2015, Crown Royal Northern Harvest Rye was named World Whisky of the Year, a feat repeated by another Canadian rye whiskey—Alberta Premium Cask Strength—in 2021. Some experts in the whiskey industry are saying Canadian whiskey is the next big thing.

GrainHenge Arrowwood is building onto that trend of Canadian distilleries earning international accolades, although GrainHenge is—by far—the smallest distillery to do so. Crown Royal is owned by Diageo while Alberta Premium is owned by Suntory Global Spirits.

Each release of Arrowwood is limited to between 200 and 500 bottles. Given the international award, it is presently sold out. But future releases will be available at finer liquor stores in Alberta only, or through the GrainHenge website, for approximately CAD$125.

“This isn’t your grandpa’s Canadian whiskey,” said Bredo. “It’s new. It’s bold. It’s flavorful.”