Slick as a Whistle Pig

Raj Bhakta Turned Whistlepig into a Premier Rye Whiskey by Sourcing it in canada and selling it as a small-batch American Pastoral.Now he wants to make good on the marketing in vermont.But his partners want him out.

- Sam Grobart

For much of his adult life, Raj Bhakta has lost, and a lot of people have seen him do it. First there was his turn on Season 2 of The Apprentice; he was fired in the ninth episode. Then there was his disastrous run for Congress as a Republican in Pennsylvania’s 13th District; he lost by 32 points. Of course, Bhakta didn’t do himself any favors. On The Apprentice, he was known for his lady-chasing ways; when he ran for Congress, he made an ad about border security in which he crossed the Rio Grande on an elephant while a mariachi band played in the background. There are a few DUI citations on his record. Google Image search him, and you’re likely to see him smirking, with a boarding school-worthy forelock of hair and bow tie that combine to frame a perfect strike zone for your fist.

Now, Bhakta is selling a “boutique” rye whiskey, WhistlePig, out of his farm in Vermont. At first glance this might appear to be just another page in the D-List Celebrity Handbook (Chapter 4: Monetize Your Brand!). But here’s the nutso thing. Bhakta has actually made something out of WhistlePig. If cocktails are still the new hotness, and whiskey remains at the center of that hotness, then rye—a spicier, drier brother to bourbon—is its plasmic, fusion-reactor core. Bhakta got there before most. “You go back to maybe 2003, 2004,” says Frank Coleman of the Distilled Spirits Council, “we were even considering not tracking rye anymore because it was just so small.” Since 2009, however, interest in the spirit has skyrocketed, with supplier revenue jumping 609 percent through last year. Bhakta introduced WhistlePig in 2010 and has seen sales go from $1 million in its first year to more than $10 million in 2015. Like a wise man from Van Halen once said: Everybody wants some.