Chasing the Unicorn: Bourbon & American Whiskey

MGP has distilled the whiskey behind Bulleit Rye, High West, Templeton and more for decades without ever selling a bottle under its own name. That changed this week with Chapter One, a 10-year, 111-proof straight bourbon at $69.99. The federal disclosure rule that put "Distilled in Indiana" on all those other labels is the reason we could ever tell.

The retail detail — the where, the when and the numbers — isn't in this episode. Platform rules for alcohol content don't allow it here. All of it is in the American Whiskey Industry Brief, free every morning at chasingtheunicornpodcast.com.

Kentucky's Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control has seventy confiscated bottles up for public bid this week — Old Rip Van Winkle, Blanton's, E.H. Taylor, Weller, Rock Hill Farms and a Michter's 10 Year single barrel — with bidding closing midnight September 30 and pickup only in Frankfort. Franklin also pairs two shelf bottles with no line to stand in: the newly revived Glenmore at $19.99 and Knob Creek's second-ever 12 Year cask strength at $89.99. Plus a Kentucky camp's fifteen-drawing bourbon raffle topped by a full Pappy Van Winkle collection.

The retail detail — the where, the when and the numbers — isn't in this episode. Platform rules for alcohol content don't allow it here. All of it is in the American Whiskey Industry Brief, free every morning at chasingtheunicornpodcast.com.

Sotheby's wrapped its largest-ever Willett Family Estate offering this week, 328 bottles sold alongside rare Scotch and Japanese whisky at its new Nightcap Wine and Spirits Festival. Elsewhere: Nancy Garrison steps up to co-CEO at Garrison Brothers on the distillery's twentieth anniversary, Starlight Distillery's Pink Bottle Release passes twenty-three thousand dollars raised for cancer patients over five years, and Dueling Grounds Distillery marks a decade with a free whole-hog picnic in Franklin, Kentucky. Franklin walks through the week's stories worth telling somebody.

The retail detail — the where, the when and the numbers — isn't in this episode. Platform rules for alcohol content don't allow it here. All of it is in the American Whiskey Industry Brief, free every morning at chasingtheunicornpodcast.com.

Remus just released the Repeal Reserve line's first rye ever, a decade into an all-bourbon run — but the real story is the mash bill behind it. Bourbon needs 51% corn, rye needs 51% rye; everything else about how the two are made is identical. Remus didn't sit near that floor. It built this whiskey on a 95% rye mash bill, about as far from the legal minimum as a distillery can get, which is why it drinks like rye turned all the way up rather than a technicality.

The retail detail — the where, the when and the numbers — isn't in this episode. Platform rules for alcohol content don't allow it here. All of it is in the American Whiskey Industry Brief, free every morning at chasingtheunicornpodcast.com.

Garrison Brothers aged its new Ranch Reserve pair four full years in new charred oak — the entire legal bourbon requirement — before moving it into Pedro Ximénez and Oloroso sherry casks shipped from Jerez, Spain, for four more years. The sherry cask doesn't make the whiskey bourbon; the bourbon was already finished being bourbon before it ever touched that second barrel.

The retail detail — the where, the when and the numbers — isn't in this episode. Platform rules for alcohol content don't allow it here. All of it is in the American Whiskey Industry Brief, free every morning at chasingtheunicornpodcast.com.

Elmer T. Lee has said 90 proof on the label every year since 1986. That number was never what the barrel produced — it's what's left after water gets added to hit the same target every time. The 40th Anniversary Edition skips that step entirely, bottling uncut straight from the barrel, so the proof swings from 124.8 to 138.6 depending which barrel you land. John breaks down what "cut to proof" actually means and why an odd number on a label is usually a tell that nobody touched it.

The retail detail — the where, the when and the numbers — isn't in this episode. Platform rules for alcohol content don't allow it here. All of it is in the American Whiskey Industry Brief, free every morning at chasingtheunicornpodcast.com.

Old Forester's 2026 Birthday Bourbon was supposed to enter the barrel at 125 proof, the legal ceiling for new-make spirit. A Labor Day holdup left the batch sitting six extra days in a holding tank, and it vented off more alcohol than water while it waited — landing at 124.4 with no water added. The whiskey drifted on its own, before wood ever entered the picture.

The retail detail — the where, the when and the numbers — isn't in this episode. Platform rules for alcohol content don't allow it here. All of it is in the American Whiskey Industry Brief, free every morning at chasingtheunicornpodcast.com.

Brown-Forman's new Kentucky Boy honors Chris Morris's 50 years at the company by blending three of his own signature whiskeys — Old Forester Birthday Bourbon, King of Kentucky, and Woodford Reserve Double Oaked. There's no age statement anywhere on the bottle. That's not an oversight: federal rule forces any age-labeled whiskey to print its youngest component's age, no matter how much older the rest of the blend is. Leaving the number off was the choice that protected the whiskey's story.

The retail detail — the where, the when and the numbers — isn't in this episode. Platform rules for alcohol content don't allow it here. All of it is in the American Whiskey Industry Brief, free every morning at chasingtheunicornpodcast.com.

It's Sunday, so Franklin trades the rearview for the windshield and takes up a question that's still unsettled: a capped raffle against a hundred named bottles versus the blind odds of a state lottery. He walks through the case for disclosed odds, the case against calling a bet a donation, and four concrete things to watch as this raffle plays out. He closes by staking his own position — and asking listeners to stake theirs before the outcome is known.

The retail detail — the where, the when and the numbers — isn't in this episode. Platform rules for alcohol content don't allow it here. All of it is in the American Whiskey Industry Brief, free every morning at chasingtheunicornpodcast.com.

Franklin sets the hunt aside for the Saturday recap, walking back through a week where the real story wasn't a bottle worth chasing but a way to tell which brands are being straight with you. From Bulleit's new permanent bottle to Redemption's barrel numbers to MGP putting its own name on a rickhouse for the first time, the week's brands split into two camps: the specific and the sentimental. Franklin checks John's calls from the week — on Garrison Brothers scarcity, on sourced-whiskey disclosure, and on Basil Hayden's "twist" — against what actually happened.

The retail detail — the where, the when and the numbers — isn't in this episode. Platform rules for alcohol content don't allow it here. All of it is in the American Whiskey Industry Brief, free every morning at chasingtheunicornpodcast.com.