Three Bourbons, One Decade, One $70 Price

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Three bourbons. One decade. One price. A Colorado distillery just shipped its first releases under new ownership — all aged ten years, all priced at $69.99. And two days before that, a distributor that moved eleven billion dollars a year filed for bankruptcy. Here's what's actually moving on your shelf this week.

I'm John from Chasing the Unicorn Podcast. Here's what moved today. July 29, 2026.

Today's Big Move is one most drinkers will never notice happening, and that's exactly why it matters. Republic National Distributing Company — RNDC — filed for Chapter 11 on Sunday. If that name means nothing to you, that's the point. Distributors are the middle step nobody sees. A distillery can't sell you a bottle directly. By law, it has to go through a distributor first, and the distributor decides which stores get which bottles. RNDC used to move over eleven billion dollars a year. Now it's liquidating what's left, after a year of quietly selling off its own territory piece by piece.

Here's why it moved fast. Within forty-eight hours, Palm Bay International had already signed replacement deals across twenty-six states — Southern Glazer's picking up fifteen of them, Reyes Beverage Group taking eleven more. That whole handoff completes by August first. Four days, start to finish, for a business this size. That tells me the paperwork was mostly done before the bankruptcy even became public.

What this means for you: if a bottle you buy regularly vanishes from your usual shelf in the next couple of weeks, don't assume it's discontinued. Ask your store who their new distributor is. Nine times out of ten, that's the answer.

Now — today's Chase. This is the one worth actually acting on, because it isn't just a headline, it's a window you can walk into.

Garrison Brothers, out of Hye, Texas, just opened its first-ever pre-sale for Hye Rye Bourbon — and it's the kind of drop that separates the patient from the impulsive. The window's open now through August tenth. Ninety-nine ninety-nine a bottle, four-bottle limit, straight through their own online portal. Here's the catch, and it's a real one: you don't pick this bottle up at the store. You pick it up in person, at the distillery in Hye, Texas — in October of 2028.

That's not a marketing gimmick. That's Garrison Brothers telling you, plainly, that the whiskey in this release isn't finished aging yet. This is a reservation on a barrel, not a purchase of a bottle. Hye Rye first came out back in 2020, a thousand-bottle run at this same ninety-nine ninety-nine price, and it built a real following in Texas whiskey circles since. So the demand is proven. What's new is that Garrison Brothers is letting you lock in today's price for whiskey that won't be ready for over two years.

Here's the math that makes this worth the wait. You're not just buying a bottle — you're buying a hedge against two years of secondary-market inflation on a bottle that already has a cult following. If Hye Rye's last run is any indicator, waiting two years for the distillery price beats paying today's premium for the 2020 batch on the secondary market. The only real cost isn't money. It's patience, and a plan to actually get to Texas in 2028.

If you can't make that trip, this isn't for you — and that's fine. But if you're the kind of drinker who's willing to play a longer game for a fair price, this is one of the cleanest ways to do it right now.

Now for today's First Sip — a short one, because Old Elk's new lineup is a perfect, free lesson in something worth knowing before you buy your next bottle.

So here's what it is. The mash bill — the grain recipe behind a bourbon — shapes flavor more than age or proof ever will. Old Elk just released three bourbons at the same age and the same price, and each one uses a different grain recipe to prove the point. One leans on rye, which usually means pepper and cinnamon and a spicier finish. One swaps rye for wheat, which softens everything out — rounder, gentler, easier to sip without water. And one is almost entirely wheat, which is a genuinely rare label to find on any shelf.

Here's the shortcut. If you already love Maker's Mark or Weller, you're a wheated drinker, and you'll want the wheated bourbon. If you gravitate toward Bulleit or Four Roses' spicier recipes, you're a high-rye drinker, and the straight bourbon is your lane. Same distillery, same age, same price — the only variable left is the grain, which makes this about as clean a taste test as you'll find.

What this changes — next time you're standing in front of a shelf trying to decide between two bourbons you've never had, skip the reviews and check the mash bill first. It'll tell you more about whether you'll like it than any tasting note will. And if you want to track which side of that line you actually fall on, log a pour from each Old Elk release in the Perfect Pour app — it's available now, and your Pour Print will show you exactly where your palate lands.

So here's the one thing to take from today. A distributor collapsing and a distillery relaunching look like two unrelated stories, but they're both the same market working through the same hangover — too much whiskey made a few years back, now finding its real price and its real route to your shelf. Some of that shakes out as chaos, like RNDC. Some of it shakes out as opportunity, like Old Elk's ten-year trio at seventy dollars, or a Texas pre-sale worth locking in today. The shelf in front of you is never static. It's just catching up.

That's The Cut. The full American Whiskey Industry Brief is free every morning at chasingtheunicornpodcast.com. I'm John Schuster. Thanks for joining me. Your unicorn is out there.