Company type | Distillery |
---|---|
Founded | 1887 (closed from 1919 to 2014) |
Founder | Jacob Rieger |
Headquarters | |
Website | www |
J. Rieger & Co. is an American distillery founded by Jacob Rieger in 1887. [1] Located in Kansas City, Missouri, it was shut down in December 1919 due to the onset of federal Prohibition. The brand was reestablished in 2014 by co-founders Andy Rieger and Ryan Maybee, becoming the first legal distillery in Kansas City since Prohibition.
Jacob Rieger immigrated to America from Goritz, Austria in 1877. In 1887 Jacob founded the J. Rieger & Co. distillery in Kansas City's West Bottoms neighborhood, [2] directly across from the Livestock Exchange Building. In 1898, [3] the first official listing of J. Rieger & Co. appears at 1527 Gennessee Street. [4] Not showing any signs of conceding in what was a booming time period in Kansas City's History, a short time later J. Rieger & Co. is expanded to include 1512-1529 Genessee Street. [5]
Jacob turned over operations of the distillery to his only son, Alexander Rieger in 1890. During Alexander's time in charge, J. Rieger & Co. claimed to be the largest mail-order whiskey house in the U.S., with a customer base of 250,000+. The distillery offered over 100 unique products ranging from whiskeys, to gins, rums, and even stomach bitters, reaching customers across the country through direct mail and advertisements.
The company thrived on this business model until the Eighteenth Amendment was passed in 1919, making the production, sale and transport of intoxicating liquors illegal. Like most breweries and distilleries across the country, Alexander was forced to shut the doors of J. Rieger & Co. in December 1919. Shortly after, Alexander Rieger Mercantile Company and Alexander Rieger Investment Company were listed at the same address of the once thriving J. Rieger distillery [6]
Sometime around the 1950s, the original distillery was razed to make way for a parking lot.
J. Rieger & Co. reestablished in October 2014 by Ryan Maybee and Andy Rieger, Jacob Rieger's great-great-great-grandson. J. Rieger & Co. today operates under the original trademark, last owned by Alexander Rieger and expired in 1922. [7]
The distillery is now located in the East Bottoms neighborhood in Kansas City, just three and a half miles from its original location.
This is the first product developed and released by J. Rieger & Co. after Prohibition. Kansas City Whiskey is a blend of sourced products: Straight Bourbon Whiskey, Light Corn Whiskey, and Straight Rye Whiskey, all aged at least 4 years, as well as a small amount of 15 year old Oloroso Sherry from the Williams & Humbert Bodega. [8] [9] It is bottled at 92 proof.
Rieger's Midwestern Dry Gin is a London Dry style gin made from a wheat spirit base and incorporates five botanicals: Juniper, Licorice root, Cardamom, Coriander, and Orange Peel. The recipe for Midwestern Dry Gin was developed by Tom Nichol, former Master Distiller of Tanqueray. [10]
Caffè Amaro is blend of a traditional Amaro with cold brew coffee. Caffè Amaro is characterized by its bitter, slightly sweet flavor which stems from the use of botanicals, herbs, and cane syrup. Caffè Amaro is a collaborative spirit with Kansas City-based coffee roasters, Thou Mayest, who selects a single origin coffee roast to make a cold brew coffee that is used to cut the Amaro spirit base to proof. The product spends a brief amount of time in barrel.
Rieger's Midwestern Premium Vodka is made from 100% Wheat Neutral Grain Spirit. The product is given a final distillation in a 750-gallon copper pot still, and carbon-filtered.
Left For Dead is a spirit distilled entirely from Kansas City-based Boulevard Brewing Company beer, [11] with each batch being made from a different Boulevard product, or multiple beers in some cases, which would have otherwise been discarded. The final product is bottled at 89 proof, a nod to 1989, the year Boulevard was founded. [12]
In July 2023, the company released their first canned cocktail named after the Electric Park District, a historic district in Kansas City, made with Rieger's vodka. [13]
Finalist (top 4) for International Best New Spirit/Cocktail Ingredient at the 2015 Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards. [14]
Irish whiskey is whiskey made on the island of Ireland. The word 'whiskey' comes from the Irish uisce beatha, meaning water of life. Irish whiskey was once the most popular spirit in the world, though a long period of decline from the late 19th century onwards greatly damaged the industry, so much so that although Ireland boasted at least 28 distilleries in the 1890s, by 1966 this number had fallen to just two, and by 1972 the remaining distilleries, Bushmills Distillery and Old Midleton Distillery, were owned by just one company, Irish Distillers.
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Pernod Ricard is a French company best known for its anise-flavoured pastis apéritifs Pernod Anise and Ricard Pastis. The world's second-largest wine and spirits seller, it also produces several other types of pastis.
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Wigle Whiskey is an artisan small batch whiskey distillery in the Strip District neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Wigle Whiskeys are the flagship products of Wigle Whiskey, which is entirely family owned and operated.
Philadelphia Distilling is a microdistillery founded in March 2005 in the Byberry neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is the first craft distillery to open in Pennsylvania since before Prohibition.
Tristan Stephenson is a British bartender, author, and businessman.
The Chattanooga Whiskey Company is a producer of bourbon whiskey and "Tennessee High Malt" bourbon whiskey, located in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The company was founded by Tim Piersant and Joe Ledbetter. The brand was launched in April 2012, and the company simultaneously announced its intention to help change local distilling laws. The launch met with some initial criticism, primarily due to where the product was made, but Hamilton County laws prohibited the manufacture of "intoxicating liquors" at the time. Local public awareness eventually became a catalyst in galvanizing support to change Prohibition-era distilling laws. In March 2015, the company opened the first legal distillery in Chattanooga since Prohibition. The first experimental whiskey, "Batch 001: Tennessee High Malt", was released in August 2017.
Manatawny Still Works is a maker of American whiskey, rum, and gin. It is produced in Pottstown, Pennsylvania along the bank of the Manatawny Creek.
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