WhistlePig Whiskey Founder Is Giving Away a Free $20 Million College Campus — But There’s a Catch

(Photo: Bhakta Spirits)

Raj Bhakta, the flamboyant liquor mogul behind WhistlePig Whiskey and the eponymous Bhakta Spirits, is giving away a college campus on the condition that its new owner dedicates itself to the “revival of the United States and Western Civilization.”

So… how did we get here?

Variously known as a whiskey entrepreneur, a Republican political personality and a one-time contestant on “The Apprentice,” Bhakta purchased the campus of the defunct Green Mountain College in the summer of 2020. Located near the village of Poultney, Vermont, the college was originally founded in 1834 before closing its doors in 2019 due to steeply declining enrollment.

Following years of renovations and an unrealized attempt to turn the campus into a destination getaway, Bhakta is now offering up the grounds for free — so long as its recipient is a Catholic, mission-based organization.

“This gift is about stewardship,” Bhakta remarked in a news release. “The Green Mountain College campus is a magnificent resource, and I am seeking a Catholic organization with the vision and capability to use it for good — to serve people, purpose, and faith.”

The Gift (stylized in all caps) reportedly includes an office and administrative building with a commercial kitchen and dining hall, a multi-level library and dormitories consisting of over 54 individual rooms. The 155-acre campus also contains several quad areas, a gymnasium and an indoor basketball court.

Bhakta bought the shuttered campus at an auction price of $4.5 million, well below its estimated value of $20 million. His team speculates that the grounds would cost $200 million to fully rebuild, plus an additional one million dollars in annual upkeep.

And that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the campus’ liquor and luxury goods assets — all of which will presumably be rehomed (if they haven’t already) once a Catholic institution signs the deed.

As little as a year ago, groups of journalists were being invited to the campus, then envisioned as a booze-themed hotel in progress. From the sounds of it, Bhakta was dreaming of an all-in-one emporium on par with Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Visitors told tales of a vintage car collection housed in the school gymnasium, barrels stacked to the ceiling of the library, whiskey blending seminars taught in a repurposed lab room and a sauna room adjoining the facility’s Olympic-size swimming pool. According to Drinkhacker’s Drew Beard, journalists and influencers spent the night in “minimally updated dormitory housing, complete with communal showers.”

Bhakta got his start in the spirits industry in 2008, when he bought more than 5,000 gallons of Canadian rye whiskey to launch his inaugural brand, WhistlePig. The entrepreneur was ousted by WhistlePig’s board of directors a little over a decade later, eventually founding Bhakta Spirits — a specialist in vintage Armagnac, brandy and whiskey reserves — in 2020.