When Jason Bourne slides into his next literary adventure, the CIA asset-turned-runaway agent is expected to find himself barrel-bound in the East Bottoms, said Andy Rieger, teasing a new thriller in the Bourne series that adds an iconic Kansas City destination to the hero’s story.
Rieger on Thursday revealed that J. Rieger & Co. Distillery is heavily featured in the forthcoming novel “Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Revenge” by Brian Freeman, after the author visited the Kansas City distillery — known for its award-winning whiskey, dapper vibes, and indoor slide — in 2024.
“I don’t know how many languages it’s translated into, but Jason Bourne is not a small thing in society,” Rieger told Startland News. “This is a really big name, really big deal. For us, it is so validating when somebody — who owes Kansas City nothing — sees what we have built from a quality aspect.”
When Freeman initially told Rieger — co-founder and president of J. Rieger — that he planned to include the distillery in his latest Bourne adventure, Rieger expected the author to merely mention “a Kansas City distillery” or “a distillery with a slide” — especially because Freeman slid down the slide himself before he left in 2024.
A visitor to J. Rieger & Co. Distillery goes down a slide the connects the second floor of the distillery to its main level; photo courtesy of J. Rieger & Co. Distillery
“I couldn’t believe it,” Rieger recalled of the moment he got a sneak peek at the manuscript and the two chapters that featured the distillery. “It was a full-blown scene, describing the distillery, talking about some of our products, talking about our Monogram Whiskey — which is our high-end whiskey — describing people sliding and laughing, describing how the whiskeys are world class.”
“I mean, it was just like, ‘What?’” he added. “And then it concludes in our distillery with a chase scene. Even the setting around it, they talk about Electric Park outside. They talk about the overpass that goes over the railroad tracks right next to the distillery.”
J. Rieger’s inclusion in the latest Bourne novel came about after Freeman — a New York Times bestselling author — toured the distillery while visiting Kansas City. After first stopping at the Veterans Community Project — which is also featured in the book — someone suggested taking him to J. Rieger, Rieger shared.
“They were just like, ‘We have to show you what is really the coolest thing in Kansas City while you’re here,’” he added.
Rieger could tell by Freeman’s eyes that J. Rieger was not the small, local distillery he was expecting, Rieger noted.
Andy Rieger, co-founder and president of J. Rieger & Co. Distillery; photo courtesy of J. Rieger & Co. Distillery
“He had no idea that he was walking into something that was that well-planned, that high quality, that large of a campus,” Rieger explained. “I was showing him the barrel warehouses. I was showing him the Hey, Hey Club. Absolutely everywhere we turned, I think it was just, ‘Oh, my god.’ Like, ‘What? What is this?’ And it’s so unexpected in that neighborhood, too.”
“Being able to see it, you could tell that this guy who writes these internationally acclaimed novels recognized the quality that exists here,” he added.
After the tour, Rieger recalled, they sat down and drank whiskey.
“He was just like, ‘I just want to pick your brain and just hear how you did this,’” he continued, “‘because I wasn’t expecting my day to be like this.’”
The two loosely kept in touch, Rieger noted, and then the author reached out in early 2025 to ask for permission to include J. Rieger in Bourne’s next adventure. Again, he didn’t expect much then or when Freeman reached out later in the year to confirm that the distillery had made it in the final manuscript.
“He goes, ‘The publisher loved the scene and wanted it as a big part of the scene setting, so it made the final part,’” he recalled.
Monogram Whiskey from J. Rieger & Co. Distillery; photo courtesy of J. Rieger & Co. Distillery
J. Rieger’s whiskey is internationally distributed — earning the distillery the 2023 Weida Award for International Small Business of the Year from the KC Chamber — and the distillery has earned recognition across the county, Rieger said, noting the mention by Freeman just adds to the reputation the team has been building.
“Everything that I’ve been seeing over the past couple years that the general public doesn’t,” he explained, “we get architects that are redesigning distilleries in Kentucky. They’re coming to Kansas City to see the Rieger campus because they know about it and they know that it’s a total next-level guest experience from anything else that exists in the country. We have people that tour our facility — that have toured the Guinness and Jameson factories — that say that they think that our campus and our tours are better than those — and those are notoriously considered the best in the world. We’re getting developers from both coasts coming in saying, ‘I’ve got to see it. I got to know what you’re doing here.’”
“So now for an author who has nothing to do with alcohol, nothing to do with construction, or architecture, but just knows and gets what is going to pique the interest for an international audience, it’s so humbling,” he added.
Kansas City readers can pre-order “Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Revenge” — which is set to be released Jan. 20 — through Rainy Day Books. J. Rieger is planning a book release event with Freeman — and in partnership with Rainy Day Books — Jan. 28 in the Monogram Lounge. A Rieger cocktail will be included.
Click here for tickets to the book event.
“They are a great quality organization and they are awesome in Kansas City,” Rieger said. “We’re lucky to have a good quality book store that’s local here in the city. We make sure that we partner with good quality brands that make us look good.”
