2 ‘Institutions Known For Excellence’ Join Forces As Historic Whiskey Company J. Rieger & Co. Becomes Official Spirits Partner of the University of Missouri

J. Rieger and Co. is the official spirits partner of the University of Missouri. (Photo: J. Rieger and Co.)

On Thursday, Kansas City, Missouri whiskey brand J. Rieger and Co. announced it has been tapped as an official spirits sponsor of the University of Missouri.

“We are incredibly excited to partner with the University of Missouri,” J. Rieger and Co. President Andy Rieger said in a news release. “Our shared values of excellence, innovation and a deep-rooted love for the great state of Missouri brought us together for this collaboration. Six Columns Bourbon is just the beginning, and we can’t wait to see it in the hands of Tigers fans and Missourians everywhere.”

In what both brands tout as “the coming together of two Missouri institutions known for excellence,” J. Rieger and Co. debuted Six Columns Straight Bourbon Whiskey — a nod to the campus’s icon The bourbon is meant to capture in liquid form the “bold spirit” of the University of Missouri, according to the brand.

The blended bourbon was selected from a series of 4-to-5-year-old barrels of the brand’s bourbon. J. Rieger and Co. claims the whiskey hosts aromas of dark cherry, sweet tobacco and baking spices.

J. Rieger and Co. was founded in 1887 in Kansas City’s West Bottoms Livestock Exchange district. Before Prohibition took effect, the brand built a large following, delivering whiskey by mail to thirsty Americans around 1900.

Though Prohibition forced the distillery to shutter its doors in 1919, the brand was resurrected in 2014 by bartender Ryan Maybee and Andy Rieger, the great-great-great-grandson of Jacob Rieger. The brand claims it likes to do things the old-fashioned way, and in its nascent years used sherry as a blending agent as a nod to whiskey-making practices of the 1800s.

J. Rieger’s signature Monogram Whiskey, an annual release, was released in June. The whiskey was made via the solera system, which is a practice commonly used to make sherry in Spain.

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