Joseph Magliocco’s earliest link to Michter’s came in the late 1970s, when he took his very first sales job at his family’s wine and spirits business. Michter’s, then a Pennsylvania brand with roots stretching back to 1753, had released mini gold-plated King Tut decanters of its pot still sour mash whiskey—at the time, much of the country was captivated by the “Treasures of Tutankhamen” traveling exhibit, which drew huge crowds. The decanters didn’t have the same sort of pull; in fact, they were such flops that Magliocco was tasked with getting them out of the company’s warehouses by any means necessary. As he worked to clear out the Michter’s decanters, however, he also developed an affinity for and deep understanding of the brand.
Fast forward to 1995, when Magliocco was at the helm of a new family business, Chatham Imports, and was looking for a brand to jumpstart the budding company’s revenue stream. American whiskey was in a particularly terrible state at the time, as the newest generation of drinkers spurned brown spirits in favor of vodka and California chardonnay. Still, Magliocco, a whiskey lover himself, saw an opportunity. “I wanted to do an American rye, and that was virtually dead, and when I say dead, I mean really, really dead,” he says with a laugh. “But I knew from tasting older ryes years earlier that the whiskey could be exceptional, and it just wasn’t out there.”
Ahead of bringing a new whiskey brand into Chatham’s fold, he put feelers out to distributors, who were less than enthused by the idea, reflective of the general opinion of whiskey at the time. “The distributors told me and Steve Ziegler [Michter’s sales executive vice president], ‘Listen, you’re nice young men, but you’re really stupid—you’re never going to sell any rye, at least do a bourbon.’” Little did they know, Magliocco was about to prove them wrong in a big way.
The Michter’s Name is Revived
At this point, Pennsylvania Michter’s had been defunct for several years, having shuttered entirely by 1990 after filing for bankruptcy years beforehand. As part of his search, Magliocco consulted with a law firm, and soon enough it gave him some good (and by today’s standards, unbelievable) news—the Michter’s trademark was available for purchase, and while that would include just the name and no whiskey, packaging, recipes, or anything else, it would cost all of $245. Magliocco jumped on the opportunity, buying Michter’s outright in 1997.
Also going for Magliocco at the time was the fact that Kentucky was awash with aging stocks of whiskey, with distilleries practically begging any interested buyers to take it off their hands. “When people heard that we wanted whiskey that was at least 10 years old, they were thrilled, because there wasn’t much of a market for it,” explains Magliocco. “And when they heard that we really wanted older rye, they were even more excited.” It wasn’t long after starting their search that Magliocco and the Michter’s team had enough whiskey for the revived brand’s first two releases: 10 year old rye and 10 year old bourbon. Magliocco refers to this era of the new Michter’s as “phase one,” wherein he relied solely on sourced whiskey. In that first year of business, right before 2000, he sold just 150 bottles.
Some may wonder why Magliocco took Michter’s to Kentucky, as opposed to keeping it in its ancestral home of Pennsylvania. While he considered setting up shop in Pennsylvania to honor that history, he was ultimately advised to carry the Michter’s legacy into Kentucky. “Dick Newman [an early Michter’s liquid advisor] told me, ‘For whiskey in the United States, there’s no place like Kentucky, and if you want to someday be one of the best, you’ve got to play with the best,’” he explains.
Let the Distilling Begin
By 2003, Magliocco was gearing up for phase two: contract distillation. Business had picked up slowly but steadily, and Magliocco was ready to secure a distilling partner in Kentucky to build the brand a foundation for the future. Eventually, he found one (whose name, despite no longer being affiliated with the distillery, remains undisclosed), and he assembled a trio of liquid advisors to help get the new Michter’s whiskey off the ground. Supporting Magliocco in those early days were Newman, former president of Wild Turkey parent company Austin Nichols; Willie Pratt, the late master distiller who spent his career rising through the ranks at Brown-Forman; and Marshall Berkowitz. Together, they designed the Michter’s yeast, mashbill, and general flavor profile as we know it today. Still, it was never Magliocco’s intention to be a non-distilling producer in the long run, likening it to being a world-class chef without a kitchen.
It would be another decade before Michter’s had a distillery to its name. First, Magliocco purchased a building in the Louisville suburb of Shively, Kentucky, also home to Brown-Forman Distillery and the once great Stitzel-Weller, in 2012. (The year before, he had purchased the Fort Nelson building on Louisville’s Whiskey Row with the intent of turning it into a distillery and visitors center, but years of neglect had left the building in need of major repairs that delayed its opening date to 2019.) At the new distillery, a still was installed in 2014, and then the facility began filling its first barrels some six months after that. “We waited to start barreling because we wanted to make sure that the phase three distillate—our very first own-make whiskey—was as chemically close to the phase two whiskey as possible,” Magliocco explains. The distillery stopped sourcing liquid in 2015, and Magliocco says that today, it’s entirely self-sufficient. (Aged stock it acquired before this time continues to play a role in releases like 25 year old bourbon.)
The distillery’s first employees were Pam Heilman, who had run Booker Noe Distillery for just under 15 years; Andrea Wilson, who came from a long career at Diageo North America, where she was director of distillation and maturation; and Dan McKee, previously a distiller at Beam Suntory. While Heilman retired in 2019, Wilson and McKee remain in place as master of maturation and master distiller, respectively. Their pairing, while not so unique to a country like Scotland—where master blenders and distillers routinely work in tandem—is one of the first of its kind in the U.S., highlighting the distillery’s painstaking attention to detail at every step of the way.
What Makes Michter’s, Michter’s?
There are a few Michter’s calling cards outside of its proprietary yeasts and mashbills. For one, the distillery uses a lower barrel-entry proof, with its distillate entering the barrel at 103 proof, far lower than the permissible 125 proof. Magliocco argues this creates a richer, more complex whiskey, with flavors softer and sweeter, but also robust. Michter’s has also planted its flag in older American whiskey, which, while popular these days, was certainly not in vogue when he started out. Even by 2013, when the first release of Celebration Sour Mash—an ultra-aged, luxury blend of bourbon and rye whiskeys—the tide had not quite turned toward older American whiskey. “When we originally did Celebration, it was one of the first really high-end American blends, and people thought we were nuts,” says Magliocco. “Now, of course, it’s done incredibly well for us.” In the most recent Celebration release (January 2023), the whiskeys ranged in age from 12 to 30 years old; the bottle went for $6,000, a jaw-dropping amount for an American whiskey (but one that had no trouble finding eager buyers nonetheless).
The Modern Michter’s
Today’s Michter’s fans—of which there are many, judging by how quickly its releases fly off shelves—are a lucky bunch, regularly rewarded with high-scoring whiskeys that show off just how flavorful and complex American whiskey can be. At the same time, Magliocco acknowledges the fan frustration, given the limited nature of so many of the releases. But he won’t rush the process, instead favoring the advice of Wilson and McKee to hold off until releases are ready. That said, Michter’s is gradually upping its production, so we will be seeing more of it down the road.
Take a look back at the Michter’s whiskeys rated by Whisky Advocate.
