MGP Distillery via Chuck Cowdery
A little over 4 years ago (April of 2013) MGP announced they had started distilling 6 new mashbills. This is significant because they now have stock that’s over 4 years of age and it’s going to be more attractive to NDPs who may or may not be forthcoming about where it comes from. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see an influx of overpriced NAS NDP “mystery” whiskey showing up on the market in the fall. But that’s just one possibility of what the fall could hold.
In November of 2016 it was announced that MGP had purchased the George Remus brand which had previously been owned by “Queen City Whiskey” who sourced their whiskey from MGP. In the press release MGP’s CEO said that “development of our own portfolio of brands is an important part of our long-term strategy”. So Fall could also bring us a slew of new George Remus, or other MGP owned, releases that feature the now “well aged” mashbills.
MGP makes solid whiskey so I’m not worried about buying a bad product, it’s the value and potential for unscrupulous BS that I’m most concerned about. With the whiskey now being over 4 years old it not longer needs to carry an age statement if released as a straight whiskey and opens a wider field for bullshit artists to play in. When you don’t have to disclose an age statement it’s easier for a 6 month old company to dupe people who don’t know the rules into thinking they made the whiskey.
The general public, who might not know the rules of whiskey, won’t have the age listed so they can quickly figure out there’s no way a recently founded company could put out a 4-year-old product. Templeton knows these kind of tricks all too well; though hopefully because of them it won’t work if others try to follow suite. Hopefully it won’t be a problem, but just in case here are the new MGP mashbills to watch for.
The new MGP Mashbills that are now four years Old
- Rye Whiskey – 51% rye and 49% barley malt
- Rye Whiskey – 51% rye, 45% corn and 4% barley malt
- Wheat Whiskey – 95% wheat and 5% barley malt
- Malt Whiskey – 100% barley malt
- Bourbon – 51% corn, 45% wheat and 4% barley malt
- Bourbon – 51% corn and 49% barley malt
MGP makes good stuff and as a whiskey geek I’m looking forward to trying these and it’s exciting they now have 4-year-old stock in their warehouse. I’m hoping we’ll see them all on the market soon, and I’d prefer to try them all under the George Remus brand, but if they start showing up in High West products or put out by other NDP brands I won’t be too upset… so long as the price is right.
FYI, this realization happened on my Bourye Limited Sighting review over on Reddit (r/bourbon) where the user Mfeds pointed out that the mashbill listed by HW for one of the ryes was actually the Barton mashbill. I double checked MGP’s product list and saw they listed a 51% rye which Mfeds thought was a relatively young mashbill. I did some digging, found the original press release, and they were right. The 51% rye MGP mashbill is only four years and now we have this post.
Cheers!
