Templeton Rye Lawsuit Cleared To Go Ahead

By Richard Thomas

By finally and completely coming clean on where their whiskey comes from and how it is made, Templeton Rye was probably hoping to silence its critics and get on with the business of bottling and selling rye whiskey. No such luck, as the revelations were met with a class-action lawsuit that cleared the Iowa Attorney General’s office to go ahead.

Although the class action lawsuit was filed in Chicago, Illinois, Templeton Rye is an Iowa company, and Iowa state law requires that the Attorney General’s office evaluate the case’s validity in court. The next step is to see if the case will be cleared to move forward as a class action lawsuit, that usually being one of the most serious hurdles in civil actions of this type.

According to the Associated Press, Templeton Rye Chairman Vern Underwood responded by saying, “The claims made in these unfortunate and misguided lawsuits that Templeton Rye is merely a stock whiskey poured into bottles and labeled Templeton Rye are false. We have turned the lawsuits over to our lawyers and will respond in court. We want Iowans to understand the truth about the false and damaging allegations about Templeton Rye whiskey produced and bottled in Templeton, Iowa.”

The progress of this lawsuit will likely be watched very closely by American whiskey bottlers, a sector that has grown rapidly over the last several years. The strongest plank in the case that Templeton Rye misled the public is arguably their failure to properly label their whiskey as originating in Indiana, even though the label was approved by the Federal Tax and Trade Bureau. Templeton Rye is only one of dozens of bottlers with sourced products that do not indicate the state of origin on the label.