Though rye whiskey anchored many fabled cocktails in the 19th century—including the Manhattan and the Sazerac—in the 20th it became known as bourbon’s less suave cousin, the geezer’s go-to. Threatened with extinction after Prohibition, it survived by going feral in Cheever-esque bars, drunk only by those who hadn’t heard that the world had moved on to more-modern libations. When you could find rye at all, it was more often than not Old Overholt, an inexpensive but unexciting whiskey that traces its origins to 1810.