Detroit's Boldest Bourbon Is Coming for the Whiskey-Averse — and It Has a Strategy to Back It Up
There is a specific kind of skeptic that every bourbon brand eventually has to reckon with. He's not hostile. He's not uninformed. He just tried whiskey once — maybe at a college party, maybe at a dive bar — and what landed on his palate felt like a controlled burn. Since then, he's ordered beer, ordered vodka sodas, ordered just about anything else. The word "smooth" on a label means nothing to him because every bourbon he's ever encountered has called itself smooth, and none of them delivered on the promise.
Mayor Pingree Bourbon, the flagship whiskey line from Valentine Distilling Co. out of Ferndale, Michigan, has decided to go after that guy directly. And they're doing it with a campaign that doesn't just admit the skepticism exists — it leans into the joke.
The "Smoother Than You Expect" Campaign: What Makes It Different
The campaign, developed with Detroit-based creative agency Farley Oil, is called "Smoother Than You Expect." On the surface, it sounds like every other whiskey tagline. But the creative strategy behind it is more considered than a simple reversal of the "burn" perception. The research that informed the campaign found that very few people outside of the hardcore cocktail crowd push back against the idea that bourbon is harsh — they hear the word "smooth," but they don't believe it, and they feel that brands just say it out of reflex.
That distinction is the crux of everything. The creative team realized that smooth wasn't the problem — belief was. They needed to give people an out: a way to reconcile the idea with the reality. And so the campaign doesn't try to convince the skeptic that bourbon has always been smooth. Instead, it gives him permission to be surprised. The line "Smoother than I expected" doesn't require anyone to admit they were wrong about bourbon. It just lets them register honest astonishment — and keeps their dignity intact in the process.
The approach was grounded in real consumer research: the team literally bought whiskey for people and gave them a survey. The answers revealed a number of biases, both big and small. Premium whiskey comes with social pressures. The team held fast, and they bought whiskey for people and gave them a survey. What came back was a clear picture of a consumer who felt excluded from the bourbon world not because of the product itself, but because of the cultural wall the category had built around it.
The Psychology of Bourbon's Perception Problem
This is not a small problem for the spirits industry. Bourbon's image has long been split in two: on one side, a devoted and growing community of enthusiasts who treat age statements and mashbill percentages with near-religious reverence; on the other, a massive chunk of the American drinking public that bounced off their first experience and never came back. The premium craft segment of the market, which Mayor Pingree inhabits, has historically done a better job speaking to the first group than addressing the second.
Valentine Distilling has won gold medal after gold medal and racked up 90-plus ratings that promise a worthwhile glass — but sadly, some people haven't had the privilege of trying it. They see whiskey and they think "burn." That gap between critical praise and consumer reach is what the new campaign is designed to close. Rather than stacking more accolades on a shelf that already sags under the weight of them, Farley Oil and Valentine Distilling are trying to reframe the conversation entirely.
Who Is Mayor Pingree — and Why Does It Matter?
The bourbon isn't named after a marketing construct. Mayor Pingree Red Label was created in honor of Hazen S. Pingree, mayor of Detroit from 1890 to 1897, who is widely considered one of the greatest mayors in U.S. history and a champion for ordinary Detroiters who fought against monopolies and corruption. That's not a throwaway backstory cooked up by a branding firm. Pingree fought corruption wherever he found it, whether with city paving contracts, sewer contracts, or teachers' unions — all for the benefit of Detroit's citizens.
Based on a 1999 scholarly ranking, Hazen Pingree was deemed the fourth best mayor in the history of the United States. For a bourbon brand to carry that legacy, there's a certain amount of obligation baked in. Valentine Distilling honors the enduring spirit of "Old Ping" with a bourbon for the people — a fitting tribute to a man who served as a champion for the Detroiter, fighting monopolies and corruption. It's a founding ethos that actually lines up with what the "Smoother Than You Expect" campaign is trying to do: bring a quality product to people who were never supposed to feel like it was made for them.
Valentine Distilling Co.: A Michigan Pioneer With a Serious Pedigree
Established in 2007, Valentine Distilling Co. is an American pioneer of small-batch spirits. That founding year places it among the earliest craft distilleries to emerge during the American spirits renaissance — before the category became crowded with newcomers chasing the same shelf space. Their first bourbon was called "Woodward Limited," bottled at 88 proof, and it looked just like the Mayor Pingree bottle that carries the line today.
The distillery operates out of Ferndale, Michigan — a city just north of Detroit that has quietly become one of the more interesting small-business corridors in the Midwest. Personal tours by Rifino Valentine, the president and founder, left lasting impressions on visitors who appreciated his obvious pride in the business. That founder-led culture permeates the way the brand talks about its whiskey, and it runs directly counter to the faceless corporate positioning of major distillers.
The Red Label: What's Actually in the Bottle
Mayor Pingree Bourbon Red Label is aged at least four years and selected from exceptional barrels of their own Ferndale, Michigan triple pot-distilled bourbon, non-chill filtered and bottled at 94 proof. The choice to go non-chill filtered is a meaningful one: chill filtration removes some of the fatty acids and esters that contribute to mouthfeel and flavor complexity, making a whiskey technically cleaner but arguably less interesting. Valentine Distilling is making a craft argument there, even if most consumers never register the decision consciously.
Exceptional barrels of their own Ferndale, Michigan triple pot-distilled bourbon meet the finest Lawrenceburg, Indiana, traditional column-distilled bourbon casks to create a spirit with a silky, satisfying mouthfeel, intense fruit notes, and dramatic flavors that vary slightly from batch to batch. That sourcing from Lawrenceburg — which points toward MGP, one of the most respected contract distillers in the country — is handled transparently, which is more than many craft brands in a similar position can say.
The mashbill combines different distillates before they enter the barrel, generally working out to barrels with a final mashbill containing anywhere from 27% to 37% rye content — making every bottle of Red Label a high-rye bourbon, no matter how you slice it. High-rye bourbons tend to carry more spice on the palate and a more assertive character overall. For a campaign built around smoothness, that's an interesting product to be championing. But the campaign isn't claiming the bourbon lacks backbone — it's claiming the burn that whiskey-averse drinkers fear isn't what they'll actually find here.
On the nose, Mayor Pingree Red Label really impresses with a unique sweetness, offering notes of butterscotch pudding with hints of wood and a subtle fruitiness — apricot, mostly. The palate is inviting, with flavors of almond nuttiness and caramel sweetness, culminating in a fairly long-lasting finish that brings freshly shelled peanuts and strong oak notes. The Bourbon Culture review noted that the scents are solid for a 94-proof bourbon, with notes of honey and vanilla keeping things sweet alongside a light but fragrant layer of oak.
The Craft Behind Every Barrel
A lot of thought — and cost — goes into producing every barrel and batch of Red Label. It starts with the barrels themselves, which are made from staves that have been air-dried for 24 months and produced with two different char levels. That extreme seasoning process would make even Michter's blush, since their staves are seasoned for 18 months. The industry benchmark for most distillers is three to six months of stave seasoning at best — making Valentine Distilling's process genuinely unusual for a craft producer of its size.
The reasoning behind blending their own distillate with sourced bourbon is that Valentine Distilling is trying to stretch their own distillate in an attempt to set back more for future batches — a long-term play that prioritizes what the whiskey will taste like in five or ten years over what it can command on the shelf today. The cooler Michigan seasons likely help slow down additional barrel aging enough to allow the bourbon inside to not get over-oaked while the years pile on. That terroir-adjacent argument — that where a whiskey ages matters as much as how it's made — is one that Michigan distillers are only beginning to make loudly, and Valentine is positioned to lead that conversation.
The Limited-Release Model and What It Means for Availability
Demand for Mayor Pingree Red Label Bourbon Whiskey was rather high when it made its debut release, so much so that it sold out and was absent from shelves for two years. The reason is that the Red Label is aged at least four years and is a small-batch marriage of Valentine's finest casks, distilled in the Ferndale production facility.
When the Red Label returned, that release yielded just 3,900 bottles, with distribution spanning nine states including Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, New York, Maryland, Washington D.C., Connecticut, Delaware, and New Jersey. That number is a rounding error for the major distillers, but for a craft brand trying to build genuine scarcity and loyalty, it's a considered strategy. Founder Rifino Valentine noted that by doing small releases more frequently, the distillery can ensure they only bottle the choicest casks when the whiskey is truly mature: "These releases are limited, because the whiskey has to tell us when it's ready."
The cult that has grown around Mayor Pingree releases reflects exactly that approach. Mayor Pingree releases are still hard to find even in states that carry them. The brand has cultivated a fanbase devoted enough to fill multiple Facebook groups, with members fawning over every new release and showing off collection hauls that consist almost entirely of Pingree bottles. That level of loyalty is genuinely rare in the craft spirits market, where most drinkers remain opportunistic rather than devoted.
The Black Label and Beyond: Mayor Pingree's Full Range
The Red Label is the entry point, but Valentine Distilling has built out the Mayor Pingree line into a more ambitious lineup. Bold whiskeys named after the legendary Detroit mayor span an entire collection, non-chill filtered and aged at least five years, all honoring the enduring spirit of "Old Ping" with whiskeys for the people.
The Black Label line represents the oldest releases from Valentine Distilling Company, with previous releases including nine, ten, eleven, seven, and thirteen-year-old expressions. The Mayor Pingree 13-year-old Black Label clocks in at 123 proof — about as much whiskey as anyone can handle. That extreme proof on the Black Label is not an accident. It speaks to a different consumer than the smoothness campaign targets — it's for the collector, the enthusiast, the person who already knows what they're doing with a dram and wants the most intense version of the product Valentine can offer.
The 15-year-old expression represents the apex of what the Mayor Pingree line has achieved so far. The 15-year-old is a batched MGP bourbon that was released at the beginning of 2022, with a high likelihood of having been produced under the incomparable Larry Ebersold. What makes that release remarkable, according to tasting notes, is that the extended oak contact added complexity rather than dominating the spirit — every year of aging contributed without the tannins crowding out everything else.
Why This Campaign Arrives at Exactly the Right Moment
The American bourbon market has been running hot for years, but the growth has not been evenly distributed. Premium and ultra-premium segments have expanded while the entry-level category has seen pressure from ready-to-drink products, canned cocktails, and the continued ascent of tequila among drinkers who might otherwise have migrated toward whiskey. The people the "Smoother Than You Expect" campaign is chasing are not choosing between Mayor Pingree and Buffalo Trace. They're choosing between Mayor Pingree and a Modelo or a ranch water.
For a craft brand with genuine product quality and a compelling story — a distillery named for a populist Detroit mayor, making high-rye bourbon in Michigan — that audience represents a significant and largely untouched growth opportunity. The question has never really been whether Mayor Pingree Bourbon is good enough to convert a skeptic. The liquid has proven itself repeatedly in competition and among enthusiasts. The question is whether the brand can find a way into a conversation that the skeptic isn't currently having about bourbon at all.
The agency's core realization was that smooth wasn't the problem — belief was. They needed to give people an out: a way to reconcile the idea with the reality. That framing matters beyond this single campaign. It represents a broader strategic bet that honesty — even self-deprecating honesty — outperforms the aspirational gloss that premium spirits brands typically project. Instead of asking a skeptic to trust a category that has burned them before, Mayor Pingree is meeting them at their doubt and validating it before making the case for reconsideration.
The Detroit Angle: Local Identity as a Marketing Asset
Mayor Pingree Bourbon is rooted in Detroit in a way that goes beyond geography. The historical figure the brand is named after represents something specific about that city's relationship with power, corruption, and the people who push back against both. Mayor Hazen S. Pingree served from 1890 to 1897 as a champion for ordinary Detroiters and an enemy of monopoly and corruption. The Red Label Bourbon matches his audacity, combining sweet corn, spicy rye, and subtle malt for a well-rounded character that showcases the artistry of its aging process.
Valentine Distilling has not tried to soften or generalize that story for national distribution. They've leaned into the specificity of it — the Detroit-made ethos, the regional pride, the idea that serious whiskey doesn't have to come from Kentucky to be worth drinking. That conviction has served them well in building a regional cult following, and it gives the new campaign a foundation that purely aspirational brands can't replicate. When Mayor Pingree says "smoother than you expect," it's coming from a place with something to back the claim up: decades of barrel-aging experience, a founder with genuine skin in the game, and a name that carries the weight of one of the most consequential municipal leaders in American history.
The bourbon market rewards authenticity over time, even when it ignores it in the short term. Mayor Pingree Bourbon has been building toward this kind of moment — a campaign smart enough to translate genuine quality into accessible storytelling — since before most of its competitors figured out that Michigan could even make whiskey worth drinking.
