When 15 STARS took home American Blended Whiskey of the Year at the 2025 Bartender Spirits Awards for its Three Kings release, it spotlighted a brand built on intention, experimentation, and a deep respect for American heritage. Blending aged bourbon, rye, and wheat whiskeys, Three Kings is a first of its kind, crafted to explore what happens when centuries of whiskey tradition meet a modern hunger for discovery.

In this interview, co-founder Ricky Johnson shares how 15 STARS is blending storytelling and sensory experience into its DNA, from collaborating with American artisans to developing new packaging made from recycled glass. With distribution across more than 20 states and growing digital visibility, 15 STARS is positioning itself not as a throwback to the past, but as a thoughtful continuation of it, rooted in Kentucky and reaching far beyond.

Image: Three Kings by 15 Stars takes the title of American Blended Whiskey of the Year at the 2025 Bartender Spirits Awards.

Congratulations on Three Kings being named American Blended Whiskey of the Year at the 2025 Bartender Spirits Awards. How do you plan to leverage this recognition in your marketing and distribution efforts, both within the U.S. and internationally?

It is a privilege for us to be named the American Blended Whiskey of the Year from such a well-respected competition. We are excited about the opportunity to utilize this award in our marketing through multiple avenues. Because this award provides great third-party affirmation for the quality of our products, we will use it for social advertising and social media posts as well as print media advertising. This award will also be perfect for marketing items such as sales sheets and shelf talkers that we can get into the market for distributors, retailers, and consumers to see. Competition wins are really important for newer brands like 15 STARS, as they provide third-party endorsement that gives confidence to spirits enthusiasts to give a new brand a try.

Three Kings is a masterfully layered blend of whiskeys aged 11 & 15 years. What inspired its creation, and what do you feel sets this limited release apart in an increasingly crowded super-premium whiskey market?

We are always curious as blenders and want to push the boundaries of what is possible. We have compiled an extensive inventory of whiskies that allows us to create unique products with The Three Kings being the most unique of what we have created and is the only product to ever blend bourbon, rye, and wheat whiskeys. I guess you could say the inspiration was experimentation. The Three Kings being a one-of-a-kind blend is also what helps set it apart. It is a product that can only be found in the portfolio of 15 STARS and has set the standard incredibly high for what a blend of these three American Whiskeys can be.

Image: (Left) Ricky Johnson and (Right) Rick Johnson - Blending session.

The packaging—topped with a custom metal stopper engraved by American artisan Robert Scot—is both distinctive and historically resonant. How important is storytelling and visual identity in building the 15 STARS brand?

We believe that with any brand, an authentic story is incredibly important, and a visual image is worth 1000 words. We are inspired by the great craftsmen and artisans of early America and Kentucky. The coin design on the top of our stopper was engraved by the early American artisan, Robert Scot, and is the design for the very first coinage of the United States, which contained 15 stars around it, recognizing the 15 states at the time. This inclusion of Kentucky as the 15th state visually and authentically ties our brand name to Kentucky and the birth of federal America when George Washington was president. Bourbon was the native spirit of this young and growing nation. We are inspired by the heritage of American and Kentucky artisans, and visually representing them gives our customers a peek into what’s important to us and the detail with which we craft what’s inside the bottle.

Image: 15 Stars Distillery.

Where is 15 STARS currently available in terms of retail and restaurant presence? Are there specific chains, independents, or on-premise accounts where enthusiasts can regularly find your releases?

15 STARS is available in CO, CT, FL, GA, IA, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MI, MO, MT, NC, NE, NH, NJ, OH, OK, OR, RI, TN, VA, and WI. Within these states, we are available at premium liquor retailers and restaurants. We also sell our products to 43 states online at 15STARS.com. 

What marketing initiatives, whether digital, experiential, or through trade partnerships, are proving most effective in building visibility and velocity for your portfolio?

The most powerful marketing tool we have found so far has been spirits competitions. We see a lot of consumer feedback when we win Best Of awards, which, for the quality of products we are producing, is always what our goal is. In addition, getting liquid to lips is incredibly important, which is why we attend many of the major bourbon festivals in our active markets.

For distributors in the U.S., what kind of support or activations do you offer to help them move stock and build the brand in their markets?

We offer strong support to our distributors for all of our releases. This includes our own dedicated sales support in each market to support retailers’ awareness and tasting of 15 STARS products. We attend large-scale bourbon events and festivals to sample to consumers, as well as host retailer events or dinners for bourbon aficionados. We host GSM events and provide competitive incentives to distributor reps to support placements. We advertise in national publications as well as provide digital and social advertising in every market. We have a full suite of POS and in-store education materials, and of course, we support every distributor rep with physical samples of our products to be able to taste firsthand with accounts. We enter top bourbon competitions in order to build third-party blind taste testing support to bring awareness to our efforts in blending some of the world’s best bourbons. We mail to retailers regularly with information on our products and releases, and include each distributor's logo and contact information so retailers know where to source the product. It often goes unmentioned, but we also use top industry players for package design, which supports us and distributors with a world-class package. Then, of course, the most important thing is the bourbon in the bottle, for which we have become well known as a provider of fine aged bourbon. We have 10 Commandments that we use as a guide to how we produce our top-quality bourbon, and our Golden Rule is: We won’t ever put anything in the bottle that we don’t love!

Image: Three kings - Sales sheet.

As a company so clearly invested in craft and heritage, what are some of your key commitments around sustainability, whether in production, packaging, or operations?

We have a new bottle for a new line extension for 15 STARS coming out July 22, which is focused on America’s First West. Our new bottle for that line will be crafted from recycled glass, which is, of course, great for sustainability, but also allows us to offer a blue glass bottle with aged characteristics in its visual perception. That bottle design is inspired by the very first bottles made in Kentucky and used for whiskey, and it mirrors the look of old glass really well.

Beyond that, with our proprietary heritage corns, which we grow on our farms and contract other farmers in Indiana and Kentucky to grow, we farm those in sustainable ways and take extra efforts in growing to protect pollinators. This includes things like soil conservation practices, not using what are called neo-nic pesticides in our seed treatments, and planting pollinator wildflower plots on our farms.

Image: 15 Stars farming one-of-a-kind, heirloom corns.

15 STARS pays tribute to America’s First West—not just in name, but in its meticulous blending, age statements, and historical design cues. How does this connection to early American heritage inform your long-term vision for the brand?

We have a new brand expression coming out in two weeks to focus on America’s First West even more. Some information on that is attached. This builds on our commitment to anchor the brand in Kentucky and American history. The history and heritage of early American artisanship is an incredible story, and we look for these stories of great artisans of the past to inspire our work today. It’s not so much copying what they did; it’s really about learning from them in terms of using the best quality materials, taking the time to produce great work, and lifting our expectations as we strive to do our very best, just like they did. This will stick with us as we build and grow our brand, and we never know where that will take us. Who would have thought that we would have made the first ever blend of bourbon, rye whiskey, and wheat whiskey, but was we explore the opportunities with a focus on doing our very best, good things will happen.

Image: Winners of 2025 Bartender Spirits Awards - (L-R) Three Kings, Three Ports, Triple Cask II.

Conclusion

As 15 STARS expands its reach, the focus remains steady: elevate quality, honor craft, and let the whiskey speak for itself. With awards helping to open doors and reinforce consumer trust, the team’s vision is anchored in long-term storytelling, of America’s First West, of early artisans, and of what’s still possible in American whiskey today. Whether it’s with a bottle stopper inspired by the first U.S. coinage or a new line bottled in weathered blue recycled glass, 15 STARS isn’t chasing trends; it’s building a legacy with purpose, one blend at a time.

In conversation with Malvika Patel, Editor and VP, Beverage Trade Network

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