Dumb as a bag of rocks — Liquor Company Asks Consumers Not to Buy Its ‘Rittenhouse Rye’ To Celebrate Verdict

In an odd marketing move, whiskey and bourbon distiller and distributor Heaven Hill posted a statement to its official Twitter account Sunday asking people who are buying its ‘Rittenhouse’ branded rye not to purchase the drink if they intend to use it to cheer the verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial.

On Friday, after days of deliberation over evidence that included extensive video footage, a jury found teen Kyle Rittenhouse “not guilty” for the shooting deaths of two men and wounding of a third during a riot in Kenosha, Wisconsin last year.

To celebrate what they view as a just outcome, some whiskey lovers began purchasing bottles of “Rittenhouse Rye.” The brand name is derived not from the recent court case but from Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, an open-space park designed by William Penn and named for an early 19th-century papermaker.

Whiskey Raiders, a trade publication for the spirits industry, first reported the news on Monday, saying, “A quick search reveals a great number of tweets regarding celebrating the verdict with Heaven Hill’s rye. ‘Bartender, give me a Rittenhouse Rye on the rocks and make it a double! Justice has been served,’ wrote one user.”

Heaven Hill evidently wasn’t happy about the free advertising, tweeting, “We have been disheartened to learn that some individuals and businesses have been using our Rittenhouse Straight Rye Whiskey brand to celebrate the Kyle Rittenhouse case verdict, despite the profound loss of life from those events.”

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