What is a typical mash bill for bourbon?

A typical bourbon mash bill is roughly 70 to 80% corn, with the rest split between a flavoring grain (rye or wheat) and a small amount of malted barley, and by law corn has to make up at least 51%. But Buffalo Trace and Maker's Mark both just say "bourbon" on the label, and they taste nothing alike. That is because "typical" is really three typicals: the standard recipe splits into three recognized families, and the grain a distillery chooses for that second slot is what decides which bottle you are holding.

What Grains Go Into a Bourbon Mash Bill?

The mash bill is the grain recipe: the list of grains and the percentage of each that goes into the fermenter. Almost every bourbon is built from three.

Corn is the base and the biggest share, usually 70 to 80% of the recipe. It is the grain that gives bourbon its characteristic sweetness, and the more corn a recipe carries, the rounder and softer the result tends to be.

The second grain is the flavoring grain, and a distillery picks one of two. Rye, usually around 10 to 15% in a standard recipe, brings spice: pepper, baking spice, a dry edge. Wheat, used in roughly the same proportion, does the opposite. It stays out of the way and lets the corn's sweetness come forward, which is why wheated bourbons read as mellow rather than spicy.

The third grain is malted barley, usually somewhere between 5 and 12%. Its job is mostly mechanical rather than flavorful. Malting means the barley has been sprouted and dried, which activates natural enzymes in the grain. Those enzymes convert the starch in the corn and rye into sugar that yeast can ferment into alcohol. Without that small slug of malted barley, the rest of the grain would not turn into a fermentable mash. You taste corn and the flavoring grain; the barley is doing the chemistry in the background.

A recipe heavy on corn with a clear lean toward rye or wheat as its second grain is what nearly every bourbon on the shelf comes down to.

What Are the Three Common Bourbon Recipes?

Distillers and enthusiasts sort bourbon mash bills into three recognized families, separated by the flavoring grain and how much of it goes in. Each one is its own kind of typical.

Traditional bourbon, sometimes called a rye-recipe bourbon, is the default. Corn sits in the mid-to-high 70s and rye stays modest, in the low teens. Buffalo Trace runs a recipe in this range, with corn around 80% and only a sliver of rye. This is the baseline most people picture when they think "bourbon."

High-rye bourbon pushes the rye flavoring grain up to roughly 20 to 35%, pulling corn down to make room. The extra rye reads loud and spicy. Four Roses and Bulleit are the names most people meet first here; a high-rye recipe can sit near 60% corn and 35% rye, which is a noticeably different drink from the traditional baseline.

Wheated bourbon swaps rye out entirely and uses wheat as the flavoring grain. Without rye's spice, the corn's sweetness leads, and the spirit comes across as softer and rounder. Maker's Mark is the best-known example, with a recipe around 70% corn and 16% wheat.

Recipe family	Typical corn %	Flavoring grain	Malted barley %	Well-known example
Traditional (rye-recipe)	75 to 80%	Rye, low teens	8 to 10%	Buffalo Trace (~80% corn)
High-rye	60 to 75%	Rye, 20 to 35%	5 to 10%	Four Roses, Bulleit (~60% corn, 35% rye)
Wheated	68 to 75%	Wheat, ~16%	10 to 14%	Maker's Mark (~70% corn, 16% wheat)

If one of the non-traditional families catches your interest, the difference between a high-rye recipe and its spicier profile or what swapping rye for wheat actually does is where the recipes start to matter on the palate.

Why Must Bourbon Be at Least 51% Corn?

U.S. regulation sets the floor: a spirit cannot legally be called bourbon unless its mash bill is at least 51% corn. That single rule is what anchors every typical recipe.

The reason the rule matters is flavor. Corn is the grain responsible for bourbon's sweetness, so requiring a corn majority effectively guarantees the category's flavor signature. Whatever else a distiller does, a bourbon will lead with corn.

It is also the line that separates bourbon from its closest cousin. Rye whiskey flips the ratio: it requires at least 51% rye instead. Same family of grains, opposite emphasis, and the result tastes clearly different. The 51% corn rule is, in practice, the definition of what makes bourbon bourbon.

Did you know? The law only asks for 51% corn, but most distillers run well past it, commonly 70% or more. Corn is the cheapest grain to ferment and the one that yields the most alcohol per pound, so the legal minimum and the everyday recipe sit nowhere near each other.

How Is a Bourbon Mash Bill Different From a Rye or Other American Whiskey?

Bourbon is the corn-led member of the American whiskey family. Set it next to its neighbors and the boundary is easy to see.

Rye whiskey is the mirror image. Where bourbon needs at least 51% corn, rye needs at least 51% rye, which flips the recipe toward spice and away from sweetness. A high-rye bourbon and a rye whiskey can look close on paper, but the legal majority grain, and the flavor that follows from it, is different. The split between a corn-led bourbon and a rye-led rye is the cleanest dividing line in American whiskey.

The mash bill also stops doing the work at a certain point. The recipe sets where a bourbon starts, but it is aged in new charred oak barrels, and that wood contributes a large share of the final flavor: the vanilla, the caramel, the color. Two bourbons built on the same mash bill can still taste different depending on the barrel and the years in it. Asking for the bourbon mash bill is a bit like asking for the typical car. Corn is the engine they all share, but whether the rest of the recipe leans rye or wheat is what gives any given bottle its character, and the barrel finishes the job the grain started. How much the recipe alone shapes what ends up in the glass is the natural next question once the grains make sense.