Bourbon Cults: Are You Drinking the Kool-Aid?
Let’s start this off with the definition of a cult. As defined in the Merriman dictionary, a cult can mean one of the following:
A) “a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object”
B) “a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister”
C)”a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing”
Any of these definitions sound familiar? When thinking about cults, most people mention The Branch Davidians, Jim Jones, or any other number of religious based references. In all these cases, there is a relatively small following of people who are 100% devoted and fixated on the group leader. This devotion falls into category A but to outsiders, probably falls into category B. Agree or disagree, religious cults and the people they follow tend to be way out there and often misguided.
In our bourbon world, there are bourbon cults. This phenomenon seems to have started in the past ten years, coinciding with the bourbon boom. Bourbon cults fall into category C above. They consist of small groups of bourbon fans, fixated on one particular brand, distillery, or company. There is really no rhyme or reason as to how these things start. Perhaps a group of people do a distillery tour and hit it off with the owners or master distiller and from there, a social media following starts. Maybe there are groups of people who find a brand that fits their flavor profile and is very accessible, so they latch on to them. Another option may be there are groups of people looking for the next up and coming “thing” and they go all in promoting and following that company’s journey. I am sure some of the above is true. Let’s look at some of the more active and prominent bourbon cults today.
MGP
Everyone in the bourbon community is fully aware of who MGP is. They are that gigantic distillery in Lawrenceburg, IN that is the nation’s largest producer of bourbon and whiskey for other brands. There is a laundry list of brands who gained their popularity on the heels of selecting well-aged MGP barrels. Willett, Widow Jane, Joseph Magnus, and Smooth Ambler (Old Scout) are just a few of the most prolific. The MGP cult is strong. There are people who literally only seek MGP products and their entire collection consist of well-aged, sourced MGP. There is an actual Facebook page dedicated to the MGP secondary market. MGP produces some very good, in some cases, exceptional whiskey but I am not sure there is any distillery that I want my entire collection to consist of. I could do an entire article on the various cult brands that are MGP sourced.
Willett
Willett is an interesting case as they gained their cult following by sourcing some very good MGP barrels in the mid 2010’s. As a lot of smart, young distilleries often do; they chose to source good bourbon and rye to generate cash while their distillate was aging. Willett was able to procure and source some extremely good, well-aged MGP and Heaven Hill under the Willett Family Estate branding. That, along with their propensity to release these as gift shop-only releases, created this mass following and enormous FOMO feeling in the bourbon geek world. These Kentucky bourbon people were posting these 12, 15, 18, 20, 23 year plus bottles with wax tops and every bourbon fiend from coast to coast were paying top dollar to obtain them. This got so out of hand that Drew decided in 2019 to stop these distillery releases and is only offering WFE in retail stores, charity auctions and events, and online distillery pick up orders (at crazy, secondary level prices).
The result is that now Willett is releasing WFE 5 to 9-year-old offerings of their own distillate and the cult following is still there. Bottles are being purchased in as large a quantity as a store will sell them and they are ending up on the secondary market for 3-10 times the retail. The demand and FOMO for WFE products is incredible. If you add in the single barrel store and group selections, it is arguable that Willett Family Estate is the most sought out cult bourbon today.
Wild Turkey
Kind of strange huh? Most people think of Wild Turkey as the “every person drink”. The solid, flavorful daily drinker that packs just enough punch at 101 proof. What you may not know if there is quite a cult following for the products made by Wild Turkey years ago. You guessed it, Wild Turkey dusties. I will say that Wild Turkey dusties are some of my absolute favorite bourbons ever produced. Some dusty brands are hit and miss. There are a lot of excellent National Distillers dusties and there are some that are average. Same goes for KBD, Ancient Age, Heaven Hill, Barton, etc. Wild Turkey seems to be the most consistent in a very good way and due to that, they have quite the cult following. Wild Turkey is the only brand to have a mega fan. Rarebird 101, as most of you know him by, is such a Wild Turkey fan he has been able to write a book on the history of Wild Turkey and basically has created a business around being a Wild Turkey uber fan. He is not the only one, as the cult following for Wild Turkey, especially dusties, is there. Other than Stitzel Weller, Wild Turkey dusties may be the most coveted dusty offerings there are. They are hard to find and expensive but are also amazing.
Craft Distilleries
Finally, lets talk about craft distilleries. The young guns. The new kids on the block. There is a lot to like about craft distilleries. The freedom to experiment with alternative grains, distillation methods, yeast strains, and finishing methods. Branding freedom without the corporate oversight. Over the past 2-3 years, craft distilleries have started changing the narrative from “their whiskey is young and hot” to “although their whiskey is younger, it is very flavorful and really good”. The by-product of the rise of the craft distillery is the ever-growing fan base (cult for purposes of my article). There are a lot of people jumping on the craft train and for good reason. To some degree, a combination of actions from the big distilleries in recent years and the secondary market has changed what people value in bourbon and this craft cult seems to value unique flavors, ingenuity, and flexibility. There are simply things that craft distillers can do that the big boys can’t and because of that, they are creating an ever-growing cult following. Craft distilleries like New Riff, Wilderness Trail, Taconic, Finger Lakes, Stumpy’s, Neeley Family Distillery, and many more are gaining die-hard followers daily. I predict that craft distilleries will have the largest cult following within the next 2-3 years.
What does all this mean? Nothing really, other than there seems to be a big divide between brand loyal customers and these “cult followers”. I do not condone being part of a religious based cult as their track record speaks for itself, but I do not think there is anything wrong with being in a bourbon cult; as long as you drink what you like.
