Looks like that artisan, small-batch rye whiskey you recently fell in love with may not be all it’s cracked up to be.

The Daily Beast this week peels back the veneer on the artisan distilling movement and exposes one of its darkest secrets. Despite the big claims of heritage recipes, family traditions and local ingredients touted on the labels, the majority of these crafty-come-latelys it turns out actually come from one colossal booze factory in Indiana.

As the article points out, it doesn’t really take a master distiller to figure out that a startup launched in 2009 has some explaining to do when it’s pushing a product with a 15-year age statement. Still what comes as a surprise is that along with crafty rising stars like High West and Templeton Rye, big name labels like George Dickel Rye and Bulleit Rye are essentially the same distilled spirits. Though it says some bring extra aging and other finishing touches to the party in effort to make the product more their own.

Though somewhat shady and arguably unethical, this practice isn’t necessarily illegal. Still some are pushing for the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau to step up regulations that require whiskey bottles to disclose where the juice inside was made.

Photo: Flickr user Abhinandan Dutta