The Collaboration
Old Fitzgerald Bourbon and designer Jonathan Adler have launched a limited-edition backgammon set priced at $425, available now through the Heaven Hill Distillery Shop and Adler's own e-commerce channel. The set integrates Old Fitzgerald's signature green colorway and brushed brass key motif — a callback to the brand's "Your Key to Hospitality" tagline active since the 1950s — with Adler's bold, maximalist pattern language. Orders placed by December 14 ship in time for holiday delivery.
For operators and buyers, the move is worth noting less for the object itself and more for what it represents: a deliberate play to extend a bourbon brand's footprint into the lifestyle and gifting categories at a price point that commands attention on both bar backs and retail shelves.
What the Play Signals
Premium spirits brands have been accelerating non-liquid SKU strategies as a way to deepen brand equity, generate incremental revenue, and occupy physical space in accounts without relying solely on pour counts or well placement. A $425 backgammon set is not an impulse purchase — it is a hospitality prop, a conversation starter, and a gifting vehicle for high-end accounts, hotel F&B buyers, and corporate entertainment budgets simultaneously.
The timing is deliberate. Analog leisure — board games, card nights, backgammon — has been recovering as a category as consumers look for structured, screen-free social formats. Upscale bars, private clubs, and hotel lounges have increasingly incorporated curated game programming into their F&B experience design. A branded, designer-quality set positions Old Fitzgerald as both a pour and a visual element in that environment, which is a different kind of menu placement entirely.
For brand launch and wholesale distribution teams watching this space, the dual-channel approach — Heaven Hill's own shop plus Jonathan Adler's 1,000-plus wholesale distribution points globally — is an efficient way to reach both spirits-first and design-first buyers without building out independent retail infrastructure.
Operator Takeaway
Heaven Hill, which maintains over 2 million barrels across more than 70 warehouses in Kentucky and has been named Distiller of the Year nine times in the past five years, is not experimenting here. This is a brand with the scale to test premium lifestyle extensions with discipline. The Bottled-in-Bond 7-Year-Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon — Old Fitzgerald's newest year-round expression and a Gold medalist at the 2025 San Francisco World Spirits Competition — is the intended liquid pairing, giving on-premise accounts a natural upsell narrative to build around the set.
For buyers at restaurants, hotels, and private clubs sourcing holiday gifting and branded hospitality products, this collaboration offers a procurement-ready example of how spirits brands are packaging experience rather than just product. Evaluating similar collaborations for your own gifting programs or bar programming? The Old Fitzgerald model — heritage brand plus recognized design voice, functional product, holiday ship window, dual distribution — is a replicable framework worth benchmarking.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
