A World of MAGA Liquor Is Exploding Online. But What If It's Not Real?

A liquor bottle is etched with an image of President Donald Trump wearing sunglasses—one lens is stars, the other is stripes—and extending two triumphant middle fingers, apparently at you. Or at Thomas Crooks, the man who tried to kill him in Butler, Pennsylvania, last summer. The bottle, which retails for $74.99, is labeled “You Missed.”

Then there’s Let’s Go Brandon Bourbon, which co-opts the euphemism for “Fuck Joe Biden” that many Trump supporters get so excited about and slaps it on a liquor bottle—except that in this case, the product doesn’t (yet?) exist. It’s advertised by MAGA Spirits for $43.99, but when you click “Order Now,” you’re directed to a “Page not found.” The same is true of the company’s other alleged offerings: Build the Wall Tequila, Sleepy Joe Whiskey, 45 Vodka, Captain Don Rum, and the crown jewel, American Hero Whiskey, Survivor’s Reserve ($49.99), whose label bears an image of a bloodied Trump raising his “fight, fight!” fist.

“An individually numbered 5,000 bottle limited batch, this American Hero Whiskey, Survivor’s Reserve embodies strength and resilience,” reads the promotional copy. “This whiskey reflects the legacy of 45, who has faced every challenge and stood tall, unwavering with fist held high. The ultimate leader and true American Hero manifests freedom through dedication to country. Raise your glass to enduring bravery, steadfast commitment, and the spirit of a true survivor with Survivor’s Reserve.”

But: “Page not found.”

Welcome to the small but vocal world of MAGA-themed booze, a very American phenomenon that started during the first Trump administration and continues in the second. The political statements these brands are built on might be loud, but it turns out many of them are either failed business ventures or concepts that have yet to become going concerns. And with a few exceptions, most of them don’t seem to be willing to talk about their ideas or products and did not respond to repeated attempts to get in touch.

One brand you’d think would be hoping a second Trump administration will stimulate whiskey sales is American Cowboy Whiskey Company. There is nothing explicitly pro-Trump or MAGA on the brand’s website—its mission statement says that it’s “dedicated to the historical and nostalgic memory of the American cowboy.” But its official X account tells a different story, with reposts from President Trump’s official feed—there’s the president arriving at the Daytona 500 to rapturous applause, and a Fox News story about DOGE getting down to the business of clearing out government inefficiencies (along with a bunch of home-improvement and sports-car content).

Founder Steve Wesenberg told me that the company, which he started in 2020, doesn’t have a whiskey available yet but is seeking investors so it can develop a line of spirits. When I followed up via email to ask whether he intends for his brand to target MAGA supporters, I received no response. There are shirts and Yeti drinkware with the company’s logo available for sale on the website, and a placeholder says that the “next small batch” whiskey will be released in the fall of 2026. But based on Wesenberg’s statements, it seems that the “next” small batch will be in fact be the “first” small batch—if it is ever produced.

I also called Redneck Riviera, a brand founded in 2018 by country star John Rich (the short half of the early-aughts duo Big & Rich). After explaining to Rich’s publicist that I was writing a story about booze made to appeal to President Trump’s supporters, I received no response. I also received no reply from the brand itself.

Rich’s X feed makes it quite clear where he stands politically. He’s a red-hat-wearing conservative who doesn’t much like Democrats (particularly Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, but he thinks Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman has some common sense, even if he “looks like a member of the Addams Family”), wokeness (“Ya know what brand will never go woke? MINE”), people vandalizing Teslas (“Throwing Molotov cocktails at vehicles . . . is terrorism—keep it up idiots, we’ll throw you ALL in the slammer”), or the Covid-19 vaccine (which he calls “a DNA altering medical experiment” that violates the Nuremberg Code).

The official Redneck Riviera X feed isn’t as explicit, but there are pro-Trump replies to a liberal, meme-posting troll; a thumbs-up of a picture of a glass with a bullet that says “Bulletproof Trump”; and a reply to an Elon Musk post calling the AP “Associated Propaganda” that suggests “Another Parody” as another option.

The Redneck Riviera lineup features several flavored whiskeys. I tried the American Blended Whiskey, an affordable blend of 97 percent light whiskey and 3 percent rye whiskey (source distilleries are not disclosed), aged for at least three years and bottled at 80 proof. I get why people might want to drink this whiskey, in the same way they want to drink cheap blends like Seagram’s 7 or Kentucky Gentleman . . . but it’s not great. The palate leads with an intense, candylike vanilla flavor, and overall the whiskey is pretty thin and one-note. It tastes like a whiskey for people who think they maybe don’t like whiskey, and in serving that cohort it probably does a decent job.

As a brand, MAGA Spirits makes its intentions clear with the funny names (Build the Wall Tequila, etc.). The brand did not respond to emails seeking comment, and the links to buy on its website are inactive.

The same goes for Leadslingers Whiskey, which was actually founded during the Obama administration, in 2013. The brand says it’s veteran-owned and dedicated to protecting the Second Amendment, something abundantly clear on its website, with a mission statement that says it’s “devoted to the Second Amendment and all Americans who exercise it,” and an X feed with reposts of the founder of the Second Amendment Foundation and Armed American Radio (although there are no posts from the past year). That carries into cofounder Brad Premo’s social media channels, but he takes things in a clearer direction, with posts supporting Trump and Musk hawking Teslas at the White House, others insinuating that DOGE will uncover Democrats stealing taxpayer money, and an occasional flight of fancy about how “fatties” should have to buy two seats on airplanes. Again, no response to my inquiries.

Log Still was one of the few brands in the Trump-booze ecosphere that was willing to talk. This Kentucky distillery announced the release of a new bourbon called America’s 47 last January, which it unveiled at Trump’s Inaugural Ball and donated for the gift bags. The whiskey is a blend of two high-rye bourbons and one wheated bourbon that was aged between five and seven years and bottled at 47 percent ABV. (The distillery’s DSP, or Distilled Spirits Plant number, is also 47.) The distillery sent me a sample to try, and it’s a pretty good bourbon with a nice balance of spice from the rye and sweetness from the wheat. Overall, this whiskey has a classic bourbon flavor profile with notes of caramel, vanilla, and maple, and it would work well in an old-fashioned.

Founder Wally Dant told me the whiskey was meant to be a tribute to the forty-seventh presidency and was never intended as an endorsement of whoever ended up occupying that office. Given the advance preparation a new release requires, from getting label approval to formulating the blend, that makes sense. I asked him if he would have released America’s 47 if Kamala Harris had been elected, and he said he would have done “something.” “The inaugural committee approves these things, and to have a bourbon with that seal was important to us,” he said. “We would have worked with that side had they won. But [the current] administration embraced us and we appreciate that, regardless of the reaction we’ve seen—both negative and positive.”

Another new conspicuously Trump-focused whiskey is called 4547 Patriot Edition. The company behind it is Wise Spirits, a Nashville-based operation with a few other spirits in its portfolio that appears to have been founded in 2024. I set up a call with the VP of sales, Dean L. Burden, but he canceled it the day before we were supposed to talk, blaming intense interest in the whiskey. “It’s a great story and we can’t wait to share it with the world,” he wrote in an email. “Until then, we will have to delay our conversation for a while until we can get caught up with all the orders and projects we have in the pipeline.”

That delay might be longer than he initially thought. In late February, an entire shipment of 4547 whiskey, valued at $250,000, was stolen in California by thieves using false shipping documents. Ultimately, the whiskey was recovered and now each bottle from that shipment has a sticker that reads HIJACKED and includes a QR code that links to the story—never let an opportunity for marketing pass by, I guess.

I ordered a bottle of 4547 whiskey to try for myself (retail price, $79.99), and it looks like it might actually be as popular as Burden claimed—I received an email from the online retailer, Bourbon Hunt USA, saying that the shipment will be delayed as it tries to keep up with a flood of new orders. A few weeks later, it landed at my door, and it seems like the marketing is the most exciting thing about this bottle. It’s fine, a totally passable bourbon that does the job, but also doesn’t stand out in today’s crowded whiskey field.

This boomlet seems to be a modern phenomenon without historical precedent. Sure, past presidents have been known to enjoy much more than their fair share of whiskey. Biographer David McCullough wrote that Harry Truman finished his daily breakfast of eggs, toast, and bacon with a shot of Old Grand-Dad. And Benjamin Harrison reportedly liked Scotch so much that Dewar’s sent him an entire cask, which angered American distillers, who thought he should be drinking bourbon. But more explicit affiliations between a commander in chief and a whiskey brand are scarce. George Washington had a distillery at his Mount Vernon estate that made rye whiskey (it actually was one of the biggest in the country at one point); Andrew Jackson is said to have run a small Tennessee distillery; and in the late 1800s a Boston company named a whiskey after Ulysses S. Grant. But none of this comes close to the cult of personality that drives today’s MAGA brands (or almost-brands), with their explicit pro-Trump messaging.

There is some irony to the concept of MAGA whiskey brands that are actively promoting the president’s agenda with their messaging, given that Donald Trump is famously a teetotaler who lost his older brother, Fred Trump Jr., to alcoholism. Then again, the president is not known to shy away from a marketing or branding opportunity.

Trump has had alcohol business ventures before—he owned Trump Vodka from 2006 to 2011, bottles of which are currently selling for thousands of dollars on the secondary market. Eric Trump appears to be considering reviving the now-defunct brand, which was produced at Trump Winery in Charlottesville, Virginia, of all places (good grape varietals on both sides?). In his first term, Trump’s drive to become president seemed to be more about adding value to his personal brand than any real political aspirations. He sells Bibles and watches and sneakers—the president himself! Not to mention golf courses and hotels. So in a way, his entrepreneurial supporters are simply copying him, now adding Trump-adjacent whiskeys to the pile of NFTs, scented candles, and fanny packs.

On the Left, this type of political branding exists, but it is minuscule in comparison. Sure, artist Shepard Fairey’s image of Obama appeared on hope T-shirts and posters, and cognac giant Hennessy even released a limited-edition bottle to celebrate the forty-fourth president’s inauguration in 2009. Currently, the most prominent example on the Left that I could find is Republic Restoratives Distillery, a “women-owned, queer-led, unapologetically independent distillery” based in D.C. It is sort of a counterpart to the MAGA spirits world with releases like Dissent Gin, Fascist Tears Vodka, Rodham Rye, and Madam Whiskey. That last bottle, a blend of bourbon and rye whiskeys that first came out in 2020, features an image of Kamala Harris on the label. According to Washingtonian, after Biden dropped out of the race last summer, the distillery sold about five hundred bottles of Madam the following week—not too shabby for a craft operation. I was able to get in touch with someone at the distillery, but ultimately they never responded to my questions.

Trump has, of course, been erratically threatening tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada, and the European Union and then delaying them, and those countries have been responding with retaliatory tariffs. We went through this during his first term, when the EU put a 25 percent levy on American whiskey in response to tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, and the results were not good for the industry overall—and devastating for some small craft producers. An EU tariff has been proposed to return at a whopping 50 percent, although it seems there’s a chance it won’t happen at all.

It’s not likely that any of these MAGA brands are trying to sell their products overseas, and many don’t appear to have anything to sell at all. But they purport to be supporting a president whose policies have the potential to harm their businesses. MAGA whiskey brands, like other causes that are based on chest thumping and identity politics, are not really built on analyzing cause and effect and picking apart policy positions. It’s about a vibe, making a statement, and quenching the thirst of red-blooded Americans who are vociferous Trump supporters and want to make sure you know how they feel.