In 2013, the George Remus whiskey brand hit the shelves around the time mainstream whiskey consumers were growing tired of backstories and sourced whiskey.

I was familiar with Remus from my expansive research into Prohibition bootleggers. He was the largest bootlegger in the country and employed some 3,000 people a year. Based in Cincinnati, Remus frequently traveled to Kentucky to buy up bourbon. Of the distilleries around today, the Pogue Distillery in Maysville had a business relationship with Remus. (Note: The modern Pogues aren’t proud of this fact.)

But like most bootleggers, Remus went to jail. When he was released in 1927, he killed his wife, represented himself at trial (he was a defense attorney) and was acquitted.

Remus died in 1952. There are books written on Remus, and I encourage you to read more about his life.

In the here and now, Remus’ name is being used on a whiskey bottle. It’s MGP Ingredients Distillery whiskey and owned by a former Twitter executive who looks strikingly similar to Remus. In fact, give him a hat, cigar and a little more weight, J.B. Kropp would look exactly like Remus.

As for the whiskey, the Remus products include a 95-percent rye whiskey, a 95-percent rye straight rye whiskey and the low-rye bourbon. All the whiskey is “just” under 3.5 years old. The single barrel rye is 110 proof, non-chill filtered.

Kropp, now the VP of digital strategy and business development for E.W. Scripps, is a Cincinnati native and wanted to be a part of the whiskey heritage’s return to the region. There were once 92 distilleries in the Cincinnati area. Kropp’s Remus started with less than 100 barrels from MGP and now has more than 600 barrels of bourbon and rye aging. To put things into perspective, major brand dumps range between 800 and 1,200 barrels.

Kropp has no plans to build a distillery. In fact, a consultant basically told him the best way to lose money is to build a distillery. He’ll be buying whiskey from somebody else for as long as he can. “I’m transparent about all of our products,” Kropp says.