After Years of Making Whiskey for Other Brands, MGP Is Releasing a Bourbon Under Its Own Name

For about a century, some of the best whiskey in the country has been made at a massive distillery in the small town of Lawrenceburg, Indiana. Known as Seagram’s after Prohibition, the distillery changed hands a few times over the years and ultimately became MGP in 2011. Most importantly, it has been responsible for producing excellent bourbon and rye for well-known brands like Four Roses (before that distillery was revived in the early 2000s), Bulleit, Templeton, and Dickel. It has also released whiskey under some in-house brands over the past decade, but for the first time ever it is now “stepping out of the shadows” and releasing a new bourbon under the MGP name—and it’s very good. In 2021, MGP acquired Luxco, a Missouri drinks company, and added distilleries and brands like Limestone Branch, Yellowstone, and Blood Oath to its portfolio. It also created the Ross & Squibb brand, a historic name that includes Remus Bourbon and Rossville Union Rye. As we’ve reported over the past year, the company has faced some challenges in the current whiskey market, reporting significant declines in sales and pausing production as the demand for contract-distilled whiskey has decreased. Despite that, this new expression is being released under the MGP name—specifically, it’s called MGP Chapter One: Out of the Shadows. Among other things, this is an indication of how far the whiskey world has come from the days when contract distilling and sourcing were considered to be dirty secrets, mostly due to certain brands not being transparent about the practice and even making up fictional stories about where their whiskey came from. Those days are well behind us, so why not bring one of the most important names in American whiskey to the forefront? “The MGP name has built incredible equity over generations because of the quality of the products we make and the people behind them,” said president and CEO Julie Francis in a statement. “We’ve been making whiskey and spirits that others have proudly put their names on for decades. Bringing the MGP name back to the distillery and launching MGP Chapter One: Out of the Shadows is an exciting opportunity to share that story directly with consumers.” This inaugural release is a 10-year-old straight bourbon bottled at 111 proof. Master distiller Ian Stirsman blended together barrels of bourbon made from the distillery’s historic LBSV mashbill (60 percent corn, 36 percent rye, four percent malted barley) that were aged in Rickhouse G. Official tasting notes detail aromas of butterscotch, burnt sugar, molasses, and cherry on the nose, with cherry cola, raspberries, chocolate, sassafras, and leather on the palate. The other MGP news is that it’s releasing two new expressions under its Remus lineup, and one is the first ever rye whiskey to bear that name. Even though the distillery does release rye under its Rossville Union line, this is a significant step considering how much rye whiskey it makes for other brands. Remus Repeal Reserve Rye Whiskey is made from the distillery’s classic 95 percent rye grain mashbill, and is a blend of whiskey distilled in 2015 and 2016 that was bottled at 111 proof. The other new release is Series X, a blend of three different mashbills distilled from 2008 to 2017 which were blended together by Stirsman and bottled at 107 proof. Remus Repeal Reserve Rye Whiskey and Series X are available now for a suggested price of $80, while MGP Out of the Shadows is priced slightly less at $70 per bottle.