10/20/2026
Libation Education
Understanding (Or Misunderstanding?) an NDP.
After listening to a few online discussions concerning modern non-distiller producers (NDPs), I found that several things stood out to me. The most glaring thing that jumped out at me was not only how different the modern wh***ey industry is from the industry as it existed before Prohibition but how no one seems interested in discussing those differences. I believe that if modern NDPs knew more about how and where they fit into the story of American history, they’d stop trying so hard to reinvent the wheel and take up the mantle of the businessowners that came before them!
For many years, NDPs have been perceived as being less-than-honest actors within the wh***ey industry. When the bourbon boom first took off in the early 2000s, the idea that a person could buy wh***ey from someone else and bottle it under their own brand was considered a misleading (at best) or deceitful (at worst) business practice. Consumers insisted that a bottler reveal where they bought their wh***ey and that credit should always be given to the original manufacturer of the wh***ey. This belief was deeply held by wh***ey drinkers throughout the country, and their beliefs were bolstered by wh***ey writers who published articles exposing the distilleries behind the brands. MGP/LDI/Ross & Squibb became a household name as a producer while the companies bottling MGP’s wh***eys were often jeered at for not manufacturing their own products. Templeton Distillery was sued for “misleading the public” by adding a legally permitted amount of flavoring to their rye wh***eys. They were branded with scarlet letters for their lack of transparency. But, and this is a big but, the practice of bottling other people’s wh***ey and putting your own branded label on it- even adding flavorings or blending those wh***eys to create a proprietary product- was what the ENTIRE wh***ey industry was built upon before Prohibition!
What the “bourbon boomers” tend to gloss over is that the post-Prohibition wh***ey industry was responsible for building that false narrative- the one that said that only distilleries should be able to claim the rights to their own products. Think about this for a minute- In what world does a distillery company get to fill the liquor store shelves with hundreds of products of their own making AND get to sell bulk product as a contract distiller to multiple NDPs? How do those distillery companies earn the respect of their consumers even when most of their brands were purchased or absorbed and never manufactured by them in the first place? Meanwhile, non-distiller producers catch flak for being misleading about where their products come from! I mean, who is being more misleading here? The distillery company with hundreds of brands made in multiple locations or the non-distiller producer with one?
I’ve written a lot about the post-Prohibition wh***ey industry and how it shaped the modern industry as we know it today. After Repeal, when only about 5 or 6 big companies owned nearly every brand of liquor on the store shelves, you were always going to end up with some skewed narratives describing the legacy and tradition behind those brands. No one was ever going to just come out and tell you that they purchased 90% of the brands they owned and that the wh***ey in those bottles have no connection whatsoever to those wh***eys as they existed before Prohibition. They’re also going to keep it to themselves when they print the names of distilling companies on their labels that no longer exist or that never existed in the first place. It’s a hard pill to swallow when distilling companies are held up as the beacons of truth and NDPs are called out for their misleading practices.
To be clear, NDPs are as historically relevant to the American wh***ey industry as the distilleries themselves. It is disingenuous to dismiss a non-distiller producer for sourcing wh***ey when the entire industry was built on this practice before (and after) Prohibition. The big difference between the past and the present is that modern distilleries are expected to bottle their own products. While the practice of “distillery bottlings” was becoming more prevalent around the turn of the 20th century, most distillery owners were not interested in shouldering the financial burden of a bottling facility. Distilleries handled production and warehousing, but the cost of bottling was someone else’s financial problem! Smaller distilleries remained profitable simply because they were never expected to install bottling lines or hire sales teams! That was the realm of the liquor firm and the independent bottler. While some of America’s largest wh***ey companies were choosing to vertically integrate their businesses with bottling lines and satellite locations and cooperages and with expanding their reach into international trade, the bulk of America’s producers were not willing or able to do that. Liquor firms across the country (and there were thousands of them!) bought their wh***ey barrels from smaller-scale distilleries and blended the contents of those barrels together to create their house brands. Brands like Old Forester and Paul Jones and Old Baker and countless others were built on this practice.
The other piece of this issue is the post-Prohibition implementation of the three-tiered system. This system has drastically changed the American wh***ey industry in favor of the large-scale distiller and the large-scale distribution company- which is ironic considering how it was literally designed to reign in the creation of liquor monopolies. The creation of the three-tiered system is entirely the result of the whole-sale consolidation of the wh***ey industry during Prohibition. We’ll get back to this topic soon. It’s important because liquor firms, which once existed in the thousands, used to be responsible for their own product distribution. Obviously, an NDP has no control over their own distribution anymore and must secure a distribution company for that purpose. When we consider how Prohibition consolidated the industry into a handful of companies, we can also begin to imagine how it would’ve worked out if the distribution of wh***ey was left in the hands of 5 or 6 distilling companies. How long do you think it would’ve taken for National Distillers to become the sole distributor of America’s wh***ey? My guess is not long at all.
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