Photo: Aerial view of WhistlePig, a distiller and distributor of premium rye whiskeys in Shoreham, VT. Courtesy photo.
by C.B. Hall, Vermont Business Magazine Shoreham-based WhistlePig, a distiller and distributor of premium rye whiskeys, has seen the buffets of fortune but continues to grow at what chief marketing officer Jason Newell termed "a sustainable pace," although that growth may be tested as the COVID-19 epidemic continues to strain the hospitality sector that has been a key partner in the company's success.
That success has been highlighted, for example, by WhiskeyPig's receipt of best-in-show honors at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition of 2017.
Shortly thereafter, JP Morgan Chase gave the company a financial vote of confidence by issuing a $25 million asset-based line of credit, more than doubling the distillery's access to liquidity.
Today WhistlePig employs 88, putting it ahead of the 17 other Vermont distilleries in VBM's recent ranking.
WhistlePig was founded in 2007 and sold its first bottle of rye in 2010.
On its website, the company describes its mission thus: "We are committed to crafting the world’s finest and most interesting Rye Whiskeys. We will never stop dreaming of, and trying out, new ways to bring you the best that Rye Whiskey has to offer. Everyday ... we push boundaries at each step of the Whiskey making process."
Photo: WhistlePig selection of rye whiskey. Courtesy photo.
You're not going to find WhistlePig's merchandise on the world's skid rows: A quick online search turned up prices in the $45 to $200 range, and the marketing emphasis is clearly on the subtleties.
The company advertises the olfactory pleasures of its 15-year-old rye, for example, as "dominated by caramel, vanilla, and oak with hints of allspice and burnt orange."
The enterprise began by purchasing ryes distilled elsewhere and bringing them to Shoreham for finishing, a second maturation in different casks that instills a distinctive flavor in the final product.
In 2015 the company began making whiskey with rye grown on its 500 acres in Shoreham, too.
Some 350-400 of those acres are now growing the grain, whose short growing season is well-suited to northern climes.
WhistlePig markets its home-grown whiskey, aged three years, as 52 percent of its "FarmStock" product, whose remainder consists of six- and ten-year-old straight rye whiskeys distilled in Alberta, Canada.
Newell described FarmStock as "a very small release, a special release. ... Each year we have been using a growing percentage of whiskey that was distilled from grain grown on our farm, distilled using our water and aged in our wood ... [producing] a unique whiskey that highlights the local Vermont terroir."
The remainder of WhistlePig's inventory consists of single-age ryes born elsewhere. Products range from six- to 18-year whiskeys. And, Newell noted that "we have the capacity" to produce an even older product.
Not your average company history
While the epidemic is testing WhistlePig as it is so many other businesses, the company has already come through other fires, and, to all appearances, prospered in spite of them.
In June 2016, WhistlePig board members Christopher Evison and Wilco Faessen sent a letter to the distillery’s employees and investors, announcing that the board had decided to remove CEO Raj Peter Bhakta from the board and his position as CEO "in response to mounting evidence of his repeated unethical and unlawful behavior.”
Bhakta founded – or, by another account, co-founded – the company.
Evison and Faessen's allegations ranged from drunk driving to fraud, according to the Burlington Free Press's reportage, headlined "WhistlePig founder thrown out of his own company."
Bhakta remained on the payroll as “steward of the brand" and as a member of a board of advisors that had no voting power, the Free Press reported, but he also responded with a lawsuit, filed in Delaware, where WhistlePig was incorporated.
"It was a corporate dispute where Raj disagreed with the board’s decision to remove him from CEO position," Faessen told VBM in an email. "The suit was settled in November 2016. Raj stepped down from the CEO position at that time. ... He fully stepped down from his functions at our company late 2017, but remained a shareholder."
In December 2018, New York-based BDT Capital Partners bought out Bhakta's stake in the enterprise.
In its coverage of the buyout, VBM reported that "Bhakta ... is no longer involved with the company."
"We are thrilled to have BDT as a partner," Faessen said, in a BusinessWire.com release on BDT's entry. The release identified Faessen as a co-founder of the company.
Bhakta has disputed Faessen's status as co-founder, telling the Free Press in 2016 that "the only thing Wilco ever co-founded was his daughter."
Having left the company, Bhakta didn't go far, and he stayed in the spirits business – meaning, specifically, brandy.
Today he maintains a presence just a few miles away in Shoreham, on about 900 acres of land where, his Bhakta Farms website states, "We have sowed the seeds for grape vines and fruit trees that will flow into our products."
In addition to its holdings in Shoreham and Florida, where it operates a large cattle ranch, Bhakta Farms owns a chateau – Chateau Bhakta – in France's brandy-producing Armagnac region.
Through Bhakta Farms' communications chief, Nicole Rodriguez, Bhakta asked to postpone an interview that VBM had sought for this article, making it impossible to get his comments immediately.
Rodriguez cited a preoccupying flurry of activity aimed at the upcoming release of Bhakta Farms' first distilled product, a blend of Armagnac brandies.
From dairy farm to distillery
At a glance, WhistlePig's piece of Shoreham might pass for a slice of the Vermont of another century, with its barns and cobalt-blue Harvestore silo, and the classic New England church across the road, all surrounded by the greenness of rural Vermont.
But that big barn, 100 years old, now houses WhistlePig's distillery, lab, and, in what once was the milking parlor, the operation's bottling line.
The church building contains WhiskeyPig's mill, with four grain silos standing like sentinels outside the old house of worship.
In this bucolic setting, WhistlePig continues to press ahead. Testing the possibilities for expanding beyond its staple rye, the company is "growing and experimenting with other grains," Newell said. "Mostly it's wheat and barley."
He also touted what WhistlePig has been doing on the environmental front.
Photo: Winter scene of WhistlePig, a distiller and distributor of premium rye whiskeys in Shoreham, VT. Courtesy photo.
"We installed a new solar array, finished in early 2020, and it providess about 90 percent of our annual power consumption... We have a closed-loop wastewater system, and we employ best practices in farming techniques."
WhistlePig is also marketing a barrel-aged maple syrup, some of it originating with their own trees.
"We put it in whiskey barrels and age it for a year, and we bottle that and use it in a veriety of ways, with our restaurants and bar partners. It takes on some of the taste of the charred barrel," Newell explained.
Mention of those partners brings up the question of the clouds that the COVID-19 epidemic has put on the horizon.
"WhistlePig is very strong in bars, restaurants and hotels, and all of those businesses have been shut down," Newell said. "It's a big drink in cocktails, which people don't make as much of at home."
Asked about the virus's long-term impact, he said, "We don't know yet, to be honest. COVID has affected the business in a significant way, but we are doing well in the off-premises and e-commerce categories."
The public-health crisis has also enforced changes for WhistlePig's workers.
"We have been producing high-proof ethanol for hand-sanitizer and other disinfectants that will help protect front-line workers," Newell continued. "Most non-essential employees are working from home."
The farm property is currently closed to visitors; likewise its tasting rooms, located in Waterbury, in the Vermont Artisan Tea and Coffee outlet; and in Middlebury, in Danforth Pewter's headquarters.
The future is fraught with uncertainties, but the human palate's love of whiskey is not among them.
C.B. Hall is a freelance writer from Southern Vermont.
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