The Campaign Play
Elijah Craig, the Heaven Hill Distillery-produced family of premium Kentucky straight bourbons and ryes, is using National Bourbon Heritage Month to run a transatlantic consumer engagement play designed to widen its addressable audience beyond core American whiskey drinkers. The brand's Scottish brand ambassador, PGA Tour professional Bob MacIntyre — currently ranked ninth worldwide — is front and center in a new video campaign inviting both Scotch and bourbon fans to weigh in on the age-old spelling debate: "whiskey" versus "whisky."
The initiative is consumer-facing, but the commercial logic is squarely trade-relevant. September is the single most concentrated period of bourbon retail activation in the off-premise channel, when distributor-driven programming, end-cap placements, and promotional pricing converge around the federally designated heritage month. Layering an internationally resonant ambassador and a cross-category narrative gives Elijah Craig's wholesale partners additional shelf-story ammunition heading into Q4 — historically the highest-volume quarter for premium spirits depletions.
The Portfolio Behind the Story
The campaign spotlights three core SKUs: Elijah Craig Small Batch, Toasted Barrel Bourbon, and Straight Rye Whiskey. The Straight Rye line carries particular commercial momentum — the brand's 2025 inaugural Barrel Proof Rye release earned Whisky Advocate's Whiskey of the Year, a credential that translates directly into on-premise menu placement and specialty retail planogram positioning. For wholesalers managing a crowded premium bourbon shelf, that third-party validation helps justify shelf space and supports above-average price points without deep promotional discounting.
Elijah Craig holds the Official Bourbon designation for both the PGA of America and the Ryder Cup — partnership assets that extend the brand's reach into on-premise hospitality environments, tournament venue concessions, and golf-adjacent retail, a channel that skews toward high-income, spirits-literate consumers. MacIntyre's prior International Whiskey Day activation in late March, in which he encouraged Scotch drinkers to try bourbon, follows the same cross-category recruitment logic and signals a sustained route-to-market strategy rather than a one-off stunt.
Why Distributors Should Pay Attention
For wholesalers and on-premise accounts carrying the Elijah Craig portfolio, the campaign's voting mechanic — live at ElijahCraig.com through September 29, with results announced September 30 on Instagram — functions as a low-cost digital sampling and awareness driver that does not require trade-level spending. Results-day social amplification on September 30, the final day of Bourbon Heritage Month, is timed to land just as retailers are evaluating October reorder volumes and holiday-set planogram resets begin in earnest.
The broader market context supports the strategy. Premium and super-premium American whiskey has consistently outpaced total distilled spirits volume growth over the past several years, with the segment's strength in both on-premise and off-premise channels making it a priority category for distributor portfolio investment. Initiatives that recruit Scotch consumers — a cohort that already trades at high price points and demonstrates strong brand loyalty — represent incremental volume opportunity without cannibalizing existing bourbon drinkers. For Heaven Hill and its distributor network, a Scotch drinker who adds a bottle of Elijah Craig Small Batch to their home bar is net-new depletion.
For more trade coverage of the premium spirits segment, see our reporting on spirits manufacturing and brand strategy and distributor channel dynamics.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
