Check out our daily deals and features. The largest vodka distillery in the United States is located in Portland, Oregon.. On September 29, 2021, MGP's historic distillery in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, officially became the Ross & Squibb Distillery. Its hard to put a number on just how many modern-day whiskey drinkers fell in love with bourbon or rye whiskey because of a product that the Lawrenceburg Distillery had produced. Tanner's Creek whiskey, a blended bourbon, is only available in Indiana. April 09, 2019 in bourbon, distilling, rye, trips, vodka, whisky | Permalink So if something happens to one rick house, they dont lose an entire styles stock. MGP Ingredients Rossville Distillery in Lawrenceburg, Indiana has been making whiskey at the same location since 1847. (You can use HTML tags like and to style your text. MGP, best known for its Lawrenceburg, Indiana distillery, has agreed to acquire whiskey and spirits company Luxco for a whopping $475 million. So far, most of the line of MGP spirits is available in about 13 states. MGP Distillery is one of the oldest whiskeys in the country, having been founded in 1797. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. Everything from industrial alcohol to vodka is produced there, but lately it's become best known for its bourbon and rye. MGP is an acronym for rye, Vice President of Brands Andrew Mansinne explained at the beginning of our MGP Distillery tour. But youll never find these early whiskies bottled in single barrel or small batch forms due to the fact they were all distilled and aged for the purpose of being blended into 7 Crown and 5 Crown products. There stands a good chance that a number of those brands will have to re-convert to an all-MGPI portfolio of whiskey or at least run two brands simultaneously (much like how Nelsons Green Brier produces their own whiskey, but will continue bottling their Belle Meade line of MGPI bourbon). Rossville Union Rye "MGP is an acronym for rye," Vice President of Brands Andrew Mansinne explained at the beginning of our MGP Distillery tour. Midwest Grain Products is the countrys main supplier of whiskey for brands that do not distill their own, of which there are many. And it was one of FIVE. By analyzing these levels, it helps to zero in on specific ferulic acid and arabinoxylan percentages that will give them the best efficiency for their production. After new distilling equipment was installed, the building of large warehouses to store and age whiskey was priority. That unknown was soon answered with a resounding thud of the worldwide recession that hit in 2008. Just like that, the home of the Remus Bourbon and Rossville Union brands had a brand of its own. The story of how 5 Crown and 7 Crown got their names is not because of how many different whiskey recipes went into the finished product, instead, they came about when Mr. Sam was presented with multiple varieties of blended whiskey to choose from. | The nose is decently complex for a vodka, with minimal medicinal notes giving way to subtle aromas of lemon peel and licorice. That's very convenient as in the hot summers the water is still cool to run through the condensers. Companies like Traverse City, Blaum Bros, Litchfield, Bull Run, Chattanooga 1816, Boone County and Manifest all built early reputations on the backs of MGP barrels before running out and releasing their own products to their fan base. Often those labeled as from a craft distillery are actually sourced from MGP. Related ::Touring High West Distillery in Utah, Glengoyne Distillery in Scotland, and Teeling Distillery in Dublin. Their barrels are from a variety of producers but all are #4 char level, although this is likely also negotiable for some clients. This may not make a lot of sense because of the steps that Seagrams took back in the day to have warehouses that would age consistently throughout the floors. This distillery produces spirits for private labels to sell. Though not as sexy as barrels stored in a rickhouse, palletizing barrels makes more sense in term of volume able to be stored. The press trip I took to the distillery was more about introducing these products to the world than the various client brands made here, but naturally that was of interest too. Bike Park Tickets & Passes: 10% Off Snowshoe Retail and Dining Outlets. Here youll find travelogues, food guides, travel tips, and more all with a side of whisk(e)y. Whiskied Wanderlust is a whiskey and travel site based in Chicago. Enjoy a Coastal New Years Eve Celebration at Fly N Fish Latin Jazz Gala A New Years Celebration, Cozy Up with Old Brea Chop Houses New Fall/Winter Cocktails. Therefore each level of the warehouse would remain more or less the same temperature. Simply put, every barrel thats over 6 years old has been spoken for inside of their warehouses. A very strange relationship ensued whereby Diageo now owned a large majority of the brands that Seagrams once made, but Pernod Ricard now owned a major facility that produced the spirits that were used for those labels. The core part of its business will always be to supply other brands, but it has made the decision to make room for its own products in its business as well. Rossville Union rye whiskey is a blend of their 51% and 95% rye whiskey mashbill whiskeys aged about 5-6 years. I knew before touring MGP Distillery that they are the largest producer of rye whiskey in the country, but seeing that size firsthand is amazing. Eight & Sand blended whiskey is the newest product. The reception to this release was so positive that it spawned the release of 5 new whiskey products over the next 3 years. Founded in 1847, MGP, or Midwest Grain Products, is a distillery located in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. The other distillery, located in Atchison, Kansas (the site of the company headquarters where it was founded) distills neutral spirits and makes gin. The headlines from January 2020 were awash with the news that MGPs stock had plummeted 24% after a report came out of the shortfall in the sales department of whiskey to customers. At the Lawrenceburg distillery (outside Cincinnati but on the border of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana) they mostly produce the aged products - whiskies- though they also do some gin and neutral spirits. Details: Heaven Hill's wheated mash bill (68% corn, 20% Wheat, and 12% malted barley). Several of these improvement drawings remain in the archives at the Lawrenceburg, Indiana plant to this day. MGPI decided that they would begin to control their own destiny by creating their own brands to sell on their own. The most mind-blowing fact about MGPs size? GNS usually utilizes the cheapest grain available on the market (which is almost always corn). It does not store any personal data. It soon became known as one of the best rye whiskeys available. Email address will not be displayed with the comment.). As most of you nerds already know, most of the rye whiskey produced in the US is made at MGP Ingredients, aka Midwest Grain Products. Come join us for a cocktail in our tasting room, tour our distillery, or pick up a bottle of Bear Creek Distillery spirits at your local liquor retailer. Nowadays, whiskey enthusiasts are much more savvy to the methods of reading labels and determining sources. But there are many more similarities that continue to connect these two distilleries to this day. We spent some time in the Rack House, where the identifiable scent of wood and whiskey fills the air. As of this article, you can find their own products in just 13 states. More Information Contact News & Press. Weve reviewed almost all of these products in the last year or so (see links below), but my tasting notes from that afternoon follow. July 29, 2021 at 01:00 PM. More than 50 brands source whiskey from MGP, including Angels Envy, Bulleit, High West, Redemption, and Whistlepig, to name a few. Taste the possibilities. Most consumers believed that this product was distilled in Iowa. MGP distillery. Its like the Willy Wonka of whiskies! The bottled-in-bond bourbon is a one-time release aged 14 years. And in 2016 MGP add their own brands to the mix. An enjoyable sipper or cocktail companion, especially for $30. MGP Distillery's whiskey is all non-chill filtered and barreled at 120 proof (but the resulting bottling proofs vary). Helping to earn this moniker is the fact that MGP sits directly on top of an aquifier that provides a reliable water supply for their products. We were hosted by CEO Gus Griffin and VP of brands Andrew Mansinne along with MGP Ingredients talented production team, including Lawrenceburg plant manager Mike Templin and corporate director of quality David Whitmer. My Grandfather Eugene O'Shaughnessy was a previous owner when it was James Walsh Distillery. Since Seagrams has never marketed their GNS as a type of whiskey, the makeup of a typical batch of GNS would forgo any malted grain and instead use 100% corn. This led to a wave of distilleries looking far and wide for large stocks of aged whiskey to supplement their operations before their own whiskey could be aged and released. In the 1960s, Seagrams began to tinker with production of a new kind of distillate called Light Whiskey. They were not the only ones though, as Schenley Industries, National Distillers, American Distilling and Publicker Industries also began to experiment with light whiskey as well. But in Scotland, its the opposite. Led through the rickhouse by our amazing tour guide, Amber, we tasted from 3 . James E. Pepper Distillery ABV: 58% Average Price: $50 The Whiskey: This is two to three-year-old MGP 95 (depending on the single bottle your find) that's shipped to Lexington, Kentucky's James. MGP Distillery Whiskey Tasting with Master Blender Pam Soule . Simply put, whiskey distilled during LDIs ownership period is perceived as better because its older. It is currently only in nine markets, mostly in the Midwest, making it clear that MGP is taking its time and is deliberate with the roll out of its own line of products. How many clients does MGP have? George Ross opened Rossville Distillery in 1847, making MGP one of Lawrenceburgs original distilleries and the only one still making whiskey. Get Drinkhacker's top stories, exclusive goodies, and more! Mashbill: 75% Corn 21% Rye, 4% Malted Barley. Pernod Ricard purchased the distilling plant in Indiana and promptly changed the name to Lawrenceburg Distillers Indiana (LDI). In 1933 at the end of Prohibition, the distillery was purchased by Seagram and run by the company until 2001. The couple had previously rebuilt their home in Pearl River, Louisiana, following the devastation Hurricane Katrina left in 2005, and it took them a year to recover. Records indicate that distilling has occurred on the site for more than 200 years, beginning first in 1808. MGP Ingredients is a leading supplier of premium distilled spirits and specialty wheat proteins and starches has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Luxco, Inc., and its affiliated companies. They may have also been instructed to include warehouses with metal walls on their list as well. At the same time, they began pulling the curtain back on their distilling operations at the former Seagrams Distillery, inviting media to tour the facility and introducing the world to the first MGP products the company can actually talk about. About Our Company; Branded Spirits; Facilities & Certifications; News Releases; Social Responsibility; Our People. Light Whiskey, on the other hand, was a product that was distilled between 160 to 189.9 proof. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. Keep in mind that most distillery tour times are from 9 a.m. or 10 a.m. to 3 or 4 p.m. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". The family built and operated two main distilleries: first founding the site that today hosts the Woodford Reserve Distillery, and later the James E. Pepper Distillery in Lexington. The MGP Ingredients property includes 92 buildings on 300 acres and was originally established in 1847, but there is evidence that people were distilling on that property as early as 1808, soon after the city of Lawrenceburg was founded. Even though we werent far from the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, the maturation process is actually closer in comparison to Scotland. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". Comments (5). This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Crowded Barrel Whiskey Co. 16221 Crystal Hills Drive Austin, TX 78737 512.850.9622. tastingroom . Rossville Union rye and George Remus bourbon both have several bottles to their lineup (but more on those below). Some Indiana-bourbon lovers who swoon about older barrel proof bourbons with low ABV numbers would probably find out that their barrels came from the warehouses (and sides of the warehouses) that were especially close to Tanners Creek. Touring MGP Distillery is often compared to seeing inside Willy Wonkas Chocolate Factory. Price per Drink (50 mL): $4.00. We were unable to take pictures in the distillery room, but as it passes through several floors of a building we could really only see one section of the column still and a part of the squareish gin stills anyway. In 2006, Templeton Rye began to sell a rye whiskey with the words Small Batch and Prohibition Era Recipe on the front of their bottle. Kentucky bourbon distilleries are located east and south of Louisville. This prompted Pernod Ricard to begin looking for a buyer for the LDI facility. The L is the designation that Seagrams used to denote the Lawrenceburg, Indiana facility while the O designation was assigned to the Lawrenceburg, Kentucky facility for Four Roses. Barrels fascinate me. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Joseph Magnus Bourbon Review - Cigar Blend | Bourbon Culture, [] Joseph Magnus bourbon brand built their reputation on sourcing large lots of MGP whiskey throughout the years, starting in 2015. It has been said that ever since automation took place, that the entire distillery could be ran by as few as 6 people if it ever came down to it. With CL Financial (CLF) in control of the plant, it was a gamble on if they would be able to move the large stores of whiskey that now filled their warehouses. Atlanta's first legal distillery since 1906, Old Fourth . Some whiskey companies retain long term contracts that see their output reduced, but steady in terms of aged whiskey from MGP. This invitation was clearly a rare opportunity to visit a 170-year-old distillery with a rich whiskey past, but with all of this secrecy, would we really get a feel for the inner workings of the place? 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