The Whiskey Reviewer A World of Whiskey, Poured Every Weekday
By Richard Thomas
When Jim Rutledge, the retired and much-lauded Master Distiller of Four Roses, announced he planned to start a distillery of his own and would begin financing the project with crowdfunding, it set American bourbon forums ablaze with enthusiastic chatter. The campaign began early last week, but by Friday Rutledge had announced he had pulled the plug on the Indiegogo campaign.
The following letter was posted on the J.W. Rutledge Distillery website:
Dear Friends,
Based on the lackluster performance of the Indiegogo crowd funding platform, the management team of the J. W. Rutledge Distillery LLC has decided to close the campaign. The people having contributed to the campaign will be refunded 100% of their contributions.
The main reason the Indiegogo campaign was initiated was to give people who enthusiastically support the J. W. Rutledge Distillery endeavor, but do not have the personal resources to invest for equity, an opportunity to be part of the distillery start-up efforts and making it happen.
Mistakes were made by the management team effectively communicating the purpose of the campaign, as well as the ongoing perks of the company’s ambassador club – “The JWRD Whiskey Alliance.” Members of the JWRD WA will receive quarterly newsletters to keep members apprised of distillery activities, including Special bottle releases, annual gatherings at the distillery, pre-purchases of Limited Edition releases, discounts for merchandise purchased at the gift shop – excluding beverage alcohol.
The “perks” program could have been handled a lot better as well.
The Indiegogo program was never meant to be a substitute for raising the required capital to bring the distillery project to fruition. The good news is a number of additional private investors and groups of private investors have come forward to express a passionate interest in investing in the JWRD, as a direct result of the Indiegogo campaign. Prior to launching Indiegogo the management group of JWRD were already in contact with agents representing three additional investor groups. Funding of the entire project looks very promising.
I wish to thank everyone for the support and overall very enthusiastic communications we’ve received since the announcement of the crowd funding efforts. We listened to all feedback, and we are taking action consistent with that feedback. We continue to welcome your input on what you, whiskey lovers and possible future JWRD Whiskey Alliance members want from a J. W. Rutledge Distillery.
For those who contributed to the campaign, in addition to the 100% refund, we will grant lifetime membership to the JWRD Whiskey Alliance, and when the distillery opens we will personally invite each of them, and their spouse or guest, to our grand opening ceremonies and party, to be held on the distillery grounds.
Thanks again to all for your very positive and passionate support of our distillery project.
Jim Rutledge
Managing Partner and Master Distiller
J. W. Rutledge Distillery LLC
Given that other whiskey-related crowdfunding campaigns have raised impressive amounts of cash, if the J.W. Rutledge Distillery project’s initial results were disappointing then it raises serious questions both with how the campaign was marketed and/or the expectations for it. To cite just one recent example, the Norlan Whiskey Glass project was able to raise $807,452 via its Kickstarter campaign.
Despite the setback, indications suggest that the crowdfunding campaign was only to raise seed money, and never intended to provide the bulk of the $25 to $30 million distillery project’s financing.
