Riley Green's Duck Club Bourbon: Where the Duck Blind Meets the Barrel
There's a particular kind of credibility that no publicist can manufacture and no brand consultant can engineer — the kind that comes from a man who actually does the thing he's selling. When Riley Green stepped into the spirits industry late last year with the launch of Duck Club Bourbon, he wasn't pitching a lifestyle he read about in a marketing deck. He was bottling the one he already lives.
Raised hunting and fishing, Green still spends as much time in the field as his schedule allows. He merged that passion with his affinity for whiskey as a cofounder of Duck Club Bourbon, a brand inspired by time hunting on his six-hundred-acre Alabama farm, trips to Arkansas, and a commitment to wetlands conservation. That specificity — the Alabama acreage, the Arkansas trip, the particular tradition of a waterfowl hunt in the half-dark before dawn — is what separates this launch from the long parade of celebrity spirits that have flooded liquor store shelves over the past decade.
The Man Behind the Brand
Morningside Brands, a premium spirits company headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, announced a brand partnership with platinum-selling country music sensation and newly crowned four-time CMA Award winner Riley Green on Duck Club Bourbon, framing it as a premium whiskey brand built on authenticity, heritage, and a deep passion for the outdoors. Green's music career has given him a platform that resonates precisely where Duck Club needs to resonate — among Southern men and Midwestern hunters who care as much about where a product comes from as what it tastes like.
Green's third studio album, Don't Mind If I Do, was released on October 18, 2024, via Nashville Harbor Records. In June 2025, the album's single "Worst Way" became Green's third number-one on the Country Airplay chart, and his first as a solo artist. That momentum put him at the peak of his commercial career precisely when Duck Club was hitting shelves — a timing that is almost certainly not accidental. Green packed Nashville's Bridgestone Arena to its rafters for his first headlining show there this past April, signaling a fan base large enough and devoted enough to carry a brand launch well past a novelty purchase.
Green has been selective about brand partnerships, a fact that gives Duck Club weight it might not otherwise carry. He noted that he had several conversations over the years with several brands, but they never turned into anything — because they just weren't right. When Duck Club came to him, it was such an easy "yes" because it was so on brand for who he is and what he's doing. That discernment matters. In a market where country artists have attached their names to everything from tequila to canned water, Green's willingness to pass on the wrong opportunities makes his acceptance of the right one read as genuine rather than opportunistic.
The Partnership Structure: Three Principals, One Vision
Duck Club Bourbon was co-founded by Morningside Brands, Riley Green, and The Silent Group, an operator-led brand development firm that helped align the partnership and shape the whiskey lineup. That three-way structure is worth examining. Too many celebrity spirits collapse under the weight of being built backward — start with the famous name, then figure out the liquid. Duck Club's architecture inverts that: The Silent Group, whose portfolio of spirits consulting clients includes Bardstown Bourbon Co., High West Distillery, and Tennessee Distilling, came in on the product side to ensure the whiskey itself could hold up under scrutiny.
Duck Club is the first whiskey in Morningside's portfolio, though the company also has the Alma del Jaguar tequila label and the Waymar Gin House portfolio. For Morningside CEO McCauley Williams, moving into bourbon represents both an opportunity and a calculated risk — the bourbon category has cooled from its peak frenzy, and any new entrant needs a reason to exist beyond shelf space. Williams said Duck Club Bourbon is "designed to deliver authenticity, quality, and value to our supporters, disrupting the stagnation in today's bourbon market with a clear brand voice and always over delivering on the whiskey in the bottle."
Inside the Bottle: What Duck Club Actually Tastes Like
The Flagship Expression
The flagship Duck Club Bourbon is bottled at 92 proof and is a four-grain blend of 5 and 6 year old straight bourbon whiskeys. The blend construction here is transparent and deliberate. The blend draws 88% from a 5-year Kentucky bourbon out of Clermont with a mashbill of 67% corn, 23% rye, and 10% malted barley, then adds 12% of a 6-year wheated bourbon from Lawrenceburg, Indiana, carrying a mashbill of 51% corn, 45% wheat, and 4% malted barley. That Indiana component — almost certainly sourced from the former MGP facility now known as Ross & Squibb in Lawrenceburg — brings a soft, almost creamy wheat character to what would otherwise be a more conventional high-rye Kentucky profile. The result is a bourbon that holds its own on the palate without demanding anything from the drinker: approachable enough for the post-hunt pour, structured enough for anyone paying attention.
The suggested retail price sits at $29.99, a number that speaks loudly to the brand's market positioning. At thirty dollars, Duck Club lands in the sweet spot that whiskey buyers actually shop — below the threshold that requires justification, above the floor where quality concerns legitimately creep in. It's a price point the bourbon market has been lacking at the age-stated level, and the brand appears to know it.
The High Brass Expression
The High Brass expression checks in at 110 proof and is a blend of 5- to 8-year Kentucky straight bourbon whiskeys, combining 82% of a 5-year Kentucky bourbon with a mashbill of 67% corn, 23% rye, and 10% malted barley, alongside 18% of an 8-year Kentucky bourbon carrying a mashbill of 75% corn, 15% rye, and 10% malted barley — priced at $39.99. The High Brass carries rich caramel and baking spice notes, and at 110 proof it has the kind of density that holds up to water or ice without losing its identity. The name itself is a duck hunting reference — high brass shells are the heavier loads hunters reach for when they need more firepower. That detail is the kind of thing a real hunter would put in a product name. It's not decoration. It's vocabulary.
Duck Club High Brass is for those who like their bourbon with a little more firepower, leaning into rich, bold character — ideal for drinkers who appreciate full-bodied whiskey. At ten dollars more than the flagship, the step-up feels proportional rather than arbitrary, and the extra age on that 18% component pulls real weight in the flavor profile.
The Wetlands Release
Duck Club's portfolio also includes a new Wetlands release, launched at the Ducks Unlimited Expo in Memphis. The timing of that debut — at a Ducks Unlimited gathering, surrounded by the very community the brand wants to reach — reflects the kind of launch strategy that builds organic word-of-mouth rather than paid impressions. When a product debuts in the room where its target customer already feels at home, the brand doesn't have to explain itself.
The Conservation Backbone: More Than a Talking Point
Celebrity spirits that claim to "give back" are easy to find and often hard to verify. Duck Club has made it considerably more difficult to be cynical about its conservation commitments, and the paper trail supports the claims.
Green debuted the bourbon with a $100,000 donation to Ducks Unlimited at a concert in Arkansas last November, and Duck Club has now partnered with the organization on a three-year sponsorship agreement. A hundred-thousand-dollar opening donation at a brand launch is not a rounding error — it's a statement. It establishes Duck Club's conservation commitment as financial rather than rhetorical from day one.
Duck Club has already donated bottles and barrels for auction events held by conservation groups like Ducks Unlimited and Delta Waterfowl, and the brand has a tab on its website linking to those organizations and to the Federal Duck Stamp, which is required for all waterfowl hunters over the age of 16. The Federal Duck Stamp mention is a telling detail. It's the kind of reference that registers only with people who actually buy hunting licenses and wade into wetlands before sunrise. No lifestyle brand trying to appear outdoorsy would think to put that in a press release. Duck Club did.
Duck Club Bourbon has been named the newest Proud Partner of Ducks Unlimited, with a three-year partnership designating the full family of Duck Club Bourbon variants as official Proud Partners of DU. The significance of that designation runs deeper than a logo on a label. Ducks Unlimited is the world's largest nonprofit organization dedicated to conserving North America's continually disappearing wetlands, grasslands, and other waterfowl habitats, and has restored or protected more than 19 million acres thanks to contributions from more than a million supporters across the continent. Being a Proud Partner of DU puts Duck Club in front of one of the most deeply engaged, brand-loyal constituencies in American outdoor culture.
Ducks Unlimited CEO Adam Putnam said the organization was proud to welcome Duck Club Bourbon into the DU family, noting that "DU is all about leaving the world better for future generations, creating memories with family and friends, and the shared experiences in the field and on the water" — and that "often, those experiences include time around a fire, sipping something special." That framing from Putnam isn't boilerplate. It's an acknowledgment that bourbon and duck hunting already share cultural space, and Duck Club is simply formalizing what has been true for generations of hunters.
Beyond Ducks Unlimited, a portion of proceeds also supports wetland conservation efforts through a partnership with Delta Waterfowl, the second-largest waterfowl conservation organization in North America. Covering both major organizations in the space means Duck Club's conservation reach isn't narrowly partisan within the hunting community.
Packaging That Earns Its Nostalgia
The visual identity of Duck Club deserves its own discussion, because it does something that most whiskey packaging fails at: it communicates something specific rather than aspirational. Duck Club's packaging has a retro look with some neat details, and Green's description of it goes a long way toward explaining why it works. The labels look like something from an old Field & Stream magazine, like something that would've been in his granddaddy's hunting room — and they take you back to that place.
That reference point — granddaddy's hunting room, old Field & Stream — is doing genuine emotional work. It locates Duck Club not in a trend or a demographic study, but in a specific lived inheritance. The men who grew up with a grandfather's hunting camp have a visceral relationship to the aesthetic of that world: the worn wood of a gun rack, the smell of gun oil, the particular yellowed typography of mid-century sporting publications. Duck Club's packaging reaches for that memory deliberately, and from everything Green describes, it reaches because he actually holds that memory himself. From growing up hunting, there's a lot of tradition and nostalgia in that for him.
Distribution and Market Strategy
Distribution launched in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, with a national expansion planned for 2026. The initial state selection is not random. Arkansas is prime duck country — the Grand Prairie and the Mississippi Alluvial Plain form some of the most productive waterfowl habitat in North America, and Stuttgart, Arkansas styles itself the "Rice and Duck Capital of the World." Tennessee and Texas both have dense concentrations of country music fans and outdoor enthusiasts. Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, and Missouri round out the map with significant hunting cultures and favorable retail environments for premium-but-accessible spirits. The whiskeys are also sold online with shipping available to 42 states, ensuring that hunters outside the initial retail footprint can get bottles before the formal nationwide rollout arrives.
The brand launched with two expressions and has plans for national expansion in 2026, a measured approach that reflects hard-won lessons from the past decade of bourbon brand launches. Rolling out slowly in markets where the brand's identity resonates most strongly builds genuine retail velocity before demanding shelf space in markets where Duck Club has to introduce itself from scratch.
The Broader Context: Celebrity Bourbon in a Maturing Market
Duck Club enters a bourbon landscape that has spent several years recalibrating after the peak hysteria of the mid-2010s. Secondary market prices have corrected, allocated bottles are easier to find than they were five years ago, and consumers have grown considerably more skeptical of premium positioning unsupported by actual liquid quality. That environment is simultaneously more challenging and more hospitable to a brand like Duck Club — challenging because the rising-tide enthusiasm that once lifted celebrity spirits has ebbed, but hospitable because buyers who have grown discriminating will actually evaluate what's in the bottle rather than what's on the label.
The brand's pricing strategy implicitly acknowledges this. At $29.99 for the flagship and $39.99 for High Brass, Duck Club isn't asking anyone to make a leap of faith. The age statements are disclosed, the mashbills are published, the source distilleries are identifiable. That degree of transparency runs counter to the opaque sourcing practices that defined much of the previous decade's celebrity spirits wave, and it's the kind of transparency that earns repeat purchases rather than one-time curiosity buys.
Less than three months since launch, Duck Club had already benefited conservation organizations to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, cementing its status as a go-to pour for bourbon lovers as well as outdoorsmen who care about preserving wild places. That traction in the opening quarter of a brand's existence is the kind of signal that suggests genuine demand rather than launch-day noise.
What It Means for Bourbon Drinkers Who Hunt
The intersection of bourbon culture and hunting culture has always been real and largely underserved by the spirits industry. Plenty of whiskey brands use hunting imagery in their marketing. Very few are actually built by people whose lives are organized around the duck blind and the deer stand. Duck Club is a fairly direct attempt to close that gap — to make a bourbon that doesn't merely gesture toward the outdoors but is constitutively rooted in it.
Green described Duck Club as being "really about bringing people together, whether that's hunting, around a fire, or just spending time outdoors with friends and family," and said that teaming up with Ducks Unlimited "felt like such a natural fit" because "we both care a lot about the outdoors, the traditions that come with it, and making sure those places are around for the next generation to enjoy." Duck Club Bourbon's status as DU's Proud Partner in the straight whiskey category underscores the brand's leadership in the premium bourbon space while strengthening its connection with conservation-minded outdoor enthusiasts.
That last phrase — "making sure those places are around for the next generation" — is the animating idea underneath everything Duck Club is trying to do. Waterfowl hunting depends on wetlands. Wetlands are under pressure from development, agricultural drainage, and climate disruption. A bourbon brand that dedicates real money and real partnerships to the fight to preserve those habitats isn't just marketing to hunters; it's participating in the thing hunters care about most. For a buyer who has been writing checks to Ducks Unlimited for twenty years, finding a bourbon that does the same creates a loyalty loop that no amount of advertising spend can manufacture.
The Verdict: Credibility Over Celebrity
There's a long tradition in the American South and Midwest of sitting down after a hunt and pouring something worth pouring. The conversation around a wood stove at duck camp, the pull from a flask at the edge of a field, the evening bottle that gets opened when the birds cooperated — these are rituals with specific aesthetics and specific requirements. The whiskey has to earn its place. It can't be there as a prop.
Duck Club Bourbon, by every available measure, has set itself up to earn that place rather than assume it. Williams framed the brand's core value proposition as delivering "authenticity, heritage, and whiskey quality at an incredible value" — a formula that sounds simple until you try to actually execute it, at which point most celebrity spirits reveal the shortcuts they took. Age-stated whiskey at thirty dollars with disclosed mashbills and a genuine conservation mandate is not a shortcut. It's a commitment.
Riley Green didn't need a bourbon brand to extend his career or his income. What he appears to have wanted was a bourbon brand he could actually stand behind — one that makes the same bet on craftsmanship and conservation that he makes when he walks out onto that six-hundred-acre farm in Alabama before the sun comes up. "I spend as much time as I can outdoors; the sport and the lifestyle around it are a big part of who I am," he said at the launch. Duck Club Bourbon is the physical expression of that statement — something you can hold in your hand, pour into a glass, and put to your lips while the decoys settle on the water.
