NFL Hall of Famer Jared Allen launches Bourbon
Former American football player Jared Allen shares his journey into the spirits industry with Full Ryde Bourbon.
Allen, a former defensive end in the National Football League (NFL), was inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame last August as part of the Class of 2025.
He’s now launched a Bourbon brand called Full Ryde and is kicking things off with two releases: Batch #001-25, bottled at 122 proof (61% ABV), and Batch #002-25, bottled at 115 proof (57.5% ABV).
Batch two is aimed to be out in April, while the first batch sold out at the start of last month (February).
That, however, wasn’t actually initially intended for the public, Allen tells The Spirits Business.
He initially bottled 300 bottles [batch one] for his Hall of Fame party to give away as gifts and to drink and taste there. “We had great feedback from the party”, he says, noting batch two was intended for public sale last September too.
“There were logistical issues getting our glass and with that delayed, the government shutdown, getting new colours for different label tweaks, and then the canisters getting delayed… the whole thing has been pushed back to where batch two won’t be [released] until at least April.”
Therefore Allen looked at the 228 bottles he had from batch one sitting in the tote, which were released to the public in February through alcohol e-commerce platform Speakeasy Co, almost as a collector’s item. Each was individually numbered with the packaging signed by Allen and the price at US$295.95.
“This first one was geared towards anybody that could be a fan, but the mission was never to an athlete or celebrity Bourbon,” he says. “That was never our goal and I never wanted my face to be at the forefront. We just happened to have some leftover and thought ‘why not put this out?’”
Even batch one was supposed to go out to fans before the festive season, but waiting on glass meant that couldn’t happen.
“I tell you what, the logistical nightmares in the spirits world is something you definitely start learning,” Allen says.
Now with that lesson in the harsh realities of launching a spirits brand under his belt, Allen can press on properly with Full Ryde. The limited release is a four-grain blend of eight-year MGP and 13-year-old Kentucky Bourbon from Middle West Spirits in Columbus, Ohio, where the brand is produced and bottled.
“Our goal is to be taste and quality driven from a lifestyle standpoint of not going for demographic, but more of a psychographic,” Allens says.
Once batch two does go on sale, it will retail for US$99 a bottle. Allen says that in spite of price “our line is that ‘you’ve earned this moment’ and our thought process is regardless of whether you’re a CEO closing 100 million-dollar deals, an athlete, a construction worker or a parent that just got the kids out of the house, we all have those moments in life that you’ve worked your butt off for and want to sit down and have a quality drink in celebration”.
“We’re also not trying to target the clubs and we’re not popping bottles. We’re tasters. We want those people that want to sit down, relish in a moment, share it with a friend and family, and then get back up, because hard work, grit and determination deserve to be celebrated.”
High-proof Bourbons
The launchpad for Full Ryde came in 2021 when Allen got hold of four-year-old Bourbon barrels using his connections with MGP Ingredients. “We went through months of tasting what they had, blending things ourselves, working with the blenders over at the time,” Allen says of finding what they wanted. “We were trying to get a wheated expression, but we just couldn’t come up with a flavour profile we liked with that, so we ended up with a high rye, four-grain Bourbon.”
During this period, Allen and the team made the switch to Middle West Spirits (MWS) “because all of our people at MGP left”, he says. They then had to look at how they were going to blend their MGP liquid into Middle West stock.
“At first, Middle West didn’t have anything at eight years and I didn’t want to put anything younger than eight years in the bottle,” Allen recalls, noting incidentally that the team’s blender at MWS had just picked up barrels of 13-year-old cask strength Kentucky Bourbon.
“First we went up to MWS to taste what they had to see how long we’d have to lay up and what our inventory was going to be, but the 13-year Kentucky was insane, so then we went through a whole nother process of blending it from 115 proof to 122 proof to a 133 proof [66.5% ABV] we had it at, and where we were trying to figure out what was sustainable as far as being able to create a consistent balance of what we wanted.”
“Our philosophy is ‘let the juice lead the way’ and so whatever we come across, whatever we have in our coffers that taste the best, blends the best – that’s what we’re going to do,” he adds.
For Batch #002-25, the team is intentionally keeping the release super limited with 5,000 cases. “We want to really stay on that premium, upper echelon, scarcity model – because you don’t have to worry about meeting quotas and we can put the best tasting stuff in the bottle and really market it the way we want to,” Allen explains.
Of going for proofs at 115 and higher, a few steps above the Wild Turkey 101 (50.5% ABV) he encountered at college, Allen feels the higher strength can bring out more flavour.
“What I love about high-proof Bourbon now is the complexity it takes to make it, because I’m not drinking them to try and get banged up,” he says, likening it to cooking “where when you heat your spices up, you unlock all more flavours”.
“Our challenge is making a high-proof drink like a low-proof Bourbon, and that’s what I love about the blending process,” he adds. “Its a question of how do you age it properly and then how do you blend it to create the profiles that you’re looking for. And so that’s how I started going down the geeky road.”
Allen’s whiskey discovery
Allen’s appreciation of whisky started to get serious through friend and Full Ryde co-founder Mike Nielsen, who he calls “a big Bourbon aficionado”.
“Typically I had gone out and drunk the ‘B’ Bourbons [like Blanton’s and Bulleit], but when I met [Mike] in Chicago, he introduced me to some things that I had never heard of before, whiskies like Nikka, a very popular Japanese whisky.
“I started drinking that and began discovering the differences in whiskies versus Bourbons and all that kind of stuff. And then I slowly went down the journey of education where I was introduced to whisky clubs and next thing you’re down there and there’s 1,000 bottles that I’ve never heard of.”
Allen also met spirits writer Fred Minnick, who led him down another path. “He opened my mind up to a bunch of different brands like Barterhouse and their Orphan Barrel, which is one of my favourite whiskies. You don’t see it around very much and it’s absolutely outstanding.”
On the day-to-day for Bourbon, Allen also lists older Kentucky Owl releases like Batch 1 among his favourites, as well as Eljiah Craig’s 18 Year Old Single Barrel. His all-time favourite whiskies, however, are probably in the one-in-a-lifetime bracket for most.
“I was never a Scotch guy and I made the mistake of telling that to Fred [Minnick]. I was on his show and he gave me an 80-year Glenlivet. That was definitely an experience and it was like having a memory of something I didn’t even do – if that makes sense.
“We followed that up with a 50-year Duncan Taylor, which, well, I’ll never be able to drink standard Scotch again ever…,” he laughs.
Market strategy
Regarding route to market, Allen says they will go direct to consumer in the first year.
“Through direct to consumer, through Speakeasy, we’re able to be in 38 markets and we can then directly concentrate our marketing, campaigns, education, awareness, all the things we’re trying to do, directly to our consumers,” he says.
He also notes how the marketplace has changed from the days of when everyone would shop at brick-and-mortar stores. “There’s so many digital marketplaces and collabs you can run, on social media and the rest. That’s really what we’re trying to take advantage of instead of having to focus all of our marketing resources on spreading it out, where you’re touching a little bit in each section.”
That’s not to say the brand won’t be in retail one day. “We will absolutely be in stores at some point and we know there’s a place for the distribution model, but what we want to do is really take this year and get it right,” Allen adds.
“Instead of going and beating down every distributor’s door, hopefully we can show enough sell-through via direct to consumer, so that the distributors come to us and then we can select markets. The top 25 Bourbon retailers, maybe that’s where I want to be.”
The team also won’t be chasing volume numbers, with small batches the way forward for the brand. Allen maintains that they’re “really trying to make a conscious effort not to overextend ourselves”.
“We’re never going to be the company trying to take up as much shelf space as possible and have 15 SKUs, because I just think that waters down your product,” he says. “I don’t know that we’ll ever be a huge national retail brand.”
Last word
While Allen doesn’t know if Full Ryde will turn into a 25-year-old (and older) company or not, he believes every good business should have a five-year exit plan.
“You obviously want to scale your company to be attractive to others, but at the same time, you have to stay true to your core competencies,” he says.
He also observes how Full Ryde can be profitable compared to the big boys like Brown-Forman-owned Jack Daniel’s. “We’re doing 5,000 cases for batch two and that’s nothing in the grand scheme where you have Jack Daniel’s doing a million-plus just on their No. 7 brand alone.”
He notes the brand only needs to capture less than 1% of market share, rather than in the 5-10% range. “We just have to get along with the people that are like-minded, with those people who want something special, enjoy what we’re putting out and believe in the mission that we’re doing.”
Batch #002-25, 115 Proof is being bottled now with April intended for the launch, however Allen can’t lock in an exact date yet. “The three-tier system isn’t conducive for moving quickly,” he says with a laugh.
“That’s the key to being very successful in the spirits world: be the middleman because there’s always a middleman, and the middleman always has to get paid.”
On his outlook for the future, he adds: “We’re not trying to go out here and create the next half-a-billion-dollar company and flip it in three years. Anybody would be lying to you if you said they’re not interested in making money on whatever they’re doing, but the reality is we’re not trying to corner such a big part of the market.
“We’re just trying to be a player in a very unique space of high-end quality Bourbon.”
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