Distiller magazine a publication of the American Distilling Institute, the Voice of Artisan Distilling; devoted to the craft spirits industry: vendors and distillers alike.
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130 distiller were new and naive and thought we'd be able to keep the lights on with vodka and gin and things like that while we aged our whiskey the way we wanted to age it." But when a broker approached Matt and his brother Mike with some mature MGP whiskey, they fell in love with it and, after trying samples from many places in the warehouse, made a purchase. "It just kind of fell across our lap," Matt says. "at's when we came to the crossroads. We had never planned on doing anything sourced, so we wanted to be very open and overt with the fact that we didn't distill it." eir solution was to name the brand Knotter Bourbon, pronounced "not our bourbon." Blaum Bros. also took pains to ensure that customers understood the bourbon was sourced. "Aside from the name, Knotter Bourbon, we have several places on the label that say it's not our prod- uct. It isn't ours, we didn't distill it. We were very overt with it at the distillery as well. Our bartenders and our tour guides talked about the name Knotter Bourbon and why we named it that." Blaum Bros. only purchased from MGP once, and recently released its final bottling of Knotter; it has no plans to source again. "It was really a means to an end. Everyone thinks we're crazy because we're not continuing on the Knotter Bourbon line, but a sourced product is just not something that we ever planned to do." Although unplanned, the decision to source turned out to be very fruitful. "It put our distillery on the map and gave peo- ple brand recognition. So it was an integral part of our growth," Blaum says. "But we're perfectly comfortable now being in a spot where we have all our own products." Having a successful sourced brand in a distillery's early years is not just a matter of extra cash: It can provide the means to scale up production. Blaum admits that, "with- out the sourced products, we would not have been able to fill up as many barrels as we have." By the time the dis- tillery released its own whiskey last year, it was all at least four years old, entirely aged in full-size barrels. e sourced brand also allowed the distillery to hold some barrels back to get even older. While they can and often do pay off, sourced bourbon brands aren't guaranteed victories. As demand for older MGP whiskey has boomed, Knotter Bourbon has become a highly sought-after collector's item, but it initially strug- gled to get traction. "It was a shelf turd for the whole first year it was out," Matt says. "Some people bought it and saw it was really good stuff, but it was in that weird tran- Having a successful sourced brand in a distillery's early years is not just a matter of extra cash: it can provide the means to scale up production. "Without the sourced products, we would not have been able to fill up as many barrels as we have." Matt (left) and Mike Blaum of Blaum Bros. distillery. Photo © Blaum Bros.