Through the 19th Century and up until Prohibition, Pennsylvania rye whiskey was the premier American whiskey Classic cocktails like the Manhattan, Old Fashioned and Whiskey Sour were originally made with rye whiskey. After suffering during Prohibition, most of Pennsylvania’s distilleries went out of business — few survived as of the 1960s and all were gone by the 1980s. Dad’s Hat returned rye whiskey to its historical home in 2011