Act 132: How a Bartender Accidentally Resurrected Kansas City's Lost Whiskey Dynasty
About this episode
The episode discusses how Ryan Maybee resurrected Kansas City's lost whiskey dynasty through a chance encounter and entrepreneurial spirit.
Nigel and Nick head to J. Rieger & Co. in Kansas City's east bottoms to sit down with co-founder Ryan Maybee for one of the most remarkable in Kansas City history. Ryan traces how he stumbled onto the forgotten legacy of Jacob Rieger, a 19th-century immigrant who built the largest mail-order whiskey house in the United States, only to be shut down by Prohibition in 1919. A century later, Ryan — then a bartender and bar owner who'd helped spark KC's craft cocktail scene with his underground bar Manifesto — decided to bring it all back. He shares a chance encounter with the last living Rieger descendant and the years developing an authentic pre-Prohibition blend before launching the brand during the Royals' 2014 World Series run with zero employees. Since then, the company has transformed a crumbling east bottoms warehouse into a 10,000-square-foot distillery destination drawing nearly 200,000 guests a year. It's a conversation about history, hospitality, civic pride, and what it actually takes to build something that lasts.
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