equally dry, in fact the sweetness comes from the barrel. The difference is in the amount of flavour they add to the Bourbon. Wheat is a less flavourful grain than rye, so using wheat tends to make a more subtly flavoured Whiskey, which is more creamy and soft. Because there is less complexity and flavour in a wheat based Bourbon, the sweetness from the barrel comes through more strongly and appears more pronounced in the aged Whiskey. Rye on the other hand is intensely flavoured, with dry almost spicy notes, which add a lot of complexity to the Bourbon. With all that flavour going on, the caramelised sugars from the wood don't come through quite as much, so you usually end up with a Bourbon that has a drier finish. There are Bourbons that use both wheat and rye, and Woodford Reserve even played around with oats as a flavouring grain for one of their limited edition releases. Having tasted various recipes, aged and un aged it seems that in the region of 15 -- 20% of the flavour of the finished product can be attributed to the grains used, with another 20% coming from the yeast strain used and the rest coming directly from the barrel. WHAT 'S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT YEAST ? Get a Bourbon distiller talking about production and you can guarantee that the subject of yeast will come into the conversation. Each distillery has their own unique proprietary yeast strain that they use during fermentation,