The Daily Beast:

Templeton Rye, by contrast, has built its successful brand on being a product of Templeton, Iowa. They tell an elaborate story about how their recipe was used by the owner’s family to make illicit whiskey in Iowa during Prohibition, and how that rye had become Al Capone’s favorite hooch. They publish a description of their “Production Process” so detailed it lists the temperature (124 degrees) at which the “rye grain is added to the mash tank.” They brag that they focus their “complete attention on executing each step of the distillation process.” And yet, for all this detail, the official “Production Process” somehow fails to mention that Templeton doesn’t actually do the distilling.

....

Another challenge actual craft distillers face is that the armies of new rye drinkers have come to expect whiskey with a particular flavor—that is, the taste of MGP [the giant industrial distillery] rye. “If you’ve tried Dickel rye, Redemption, and Templeton, you’d think that’s how rye whiskey should taste,” says Clay Risen, author of American Whiskey, Bourbon & Rye. MGP’s whiskies are marketed under so many different labels that they “have colored perceptions” of what rye should be.

Sigh. I do like Redemption Rye. But if it's made in a giant factory and sold by the truckload, it's probably way overpriced.

Update: So, in some cases, and maybe in a lot of cases, it's not quite accurate to say the whiskey is made in this giant factory. In some cases, the maker will cook/mash/brew up the raw ingredients themselves and ship that to this place to be distilled. Distillation is a highly-regulated and capital-heavy process that many makers just can't afford, or haven't had the time or money to set up for themselves. Then, they get the distilled product back and put it in their own barrels for aging and/or blending. So, it's not entirely a sham. Not always. Just sometimes.

I suppose this is similar to how many wineries operate. If they grow their own grapes, they might use the facilities of a larger winery to process/ferment their grapes, and then put the result into barrels and age them at their own warehouse, or maybe at someone else's warehouse. Or maybe they own a winery but not a vineyard, so they buy their grapes from independent farmers and do the rest themselves. Or maybe they buy anonymous wine made at an anonymous winery, blend it or oak it, and slap their own label on it. And every mix and combination thereof.