Kash Patel Bourbon: FBI Director Gives Away Personalized Bottles
Kash Patel bourbon has turned up as an unexpected calling card for the FBI director: personalized Woodford Reserve bottles engraved with his name and FBI imagery. The bottles were reportedly handed out to FBI staff, civilians, and others during official business, including at an FBI event and on a DOJ plane trip to Milan.
Woodford Reserve and FBI imagery
The bottles bear the imprint of the Kentucky distillery Woodford Reserve, and the engraving reads “Kash Patel FBI Director” beside an FBI shield. The design also includes “Ka$h,” an eagle holding the shield in its talons, and the number 9, with some 750-milliliter bottles marked “#9.”
Eight people said Patel distributed the bottles. That puts a precise number on what otherwise sounds like a vanity item, and it suggests the bottles were not a one-off giveaway but part of a repeated habit tied to his public role.
Official travel to Milan
In February, Patel and his team transported the whiskey on a DOJ plane when he went to Milan during the Olympics. One bottle was left behind in a locker room during that trip, a small but telling detail about how the bottles moved alongside official travel rather than staying in a private setting.
Patel has also been filmed drinking beer with the gold-medal-winning U.S. men’s hockey team in February, and officials said that behavior did not sit well with the president. Patel said he was celebrating with his “friends” on the hockey team.
Patel’s Swag Habit
The Atlantic said Patel has a great deal of affection for swag, and a website co-founded by Patel sells beanies for $35, T-shirts for $35, orange camo hoodies for $65, trucker caps for $25, “government gangsters” playing cards on sale for $10, and a Fight With Kash Punisher scarf for $25. The free bourbon fits that pattern: branded merchandise on one side, free liquor on the other.
One bottle appeared on an online auction site shortly after the previous story appeared, and The Atlantic later purchased one of the bottles. The seller said the bottle was a gift from Patel at an event in Las Vegas.
Free Bourbon, Real Fallout
The FBI did not dispute that Patel gives out bottles of whiskey inscribed with his name, and people in his orbit said it is not unusual for him to travel with a supply of personalized branded bourbon. That leaves Patel with a simple problem of judgment, not branding: the bottles may be a novelty, but carrying them through FBI business and DOJ travel makes them a story about conduct, not merch.
Last month, The Atlantic reported that FBI personnel were alarmed by what they said was erratic behavior and excessive drinking by Patel, who denied the allegations and filed a defamation suit against The Atlantic and the reporter. J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI once gave visitors souvenir fingerprint cards in the 1930s; Patel’s bottles push the souvenir instinct into far stranger territory.
