&quot;Barrel selection and blending&quot; - no. That&#x27;s not how MGP works. MGP Ingredients, formerly Midwest Grain Products, formerly Midwest Solvents, is in Atcheson, Kansas, and Pekin, Illinois. What comes out of MGP is plain ethanol, in railroad tank cars.  Some of it goes to beverage plants, and some of it goes to refineries to be added to gasoline.[2]  They do not use &quot;barrels&quot;. They use tank farms. This is MGP&#x27;s distillery in Atcheson, Kansas in StreetView.[1]  It looks like a small oil refinery.<p>MGP is up front about this.  Check out this StreetView picture of a tank in their tank farm.[4]  The tank is clearly labeled &quot;192 Proof Alcohol - 200,000 Gallon Capacity&quot;.  That&#x27;s usable either for powering flex-fuel cars, or as feedstock for booze makers.  Check out their rail yard, with dozens of tank cars full of alcohol.[5] (The ones inside the security fence are probably full and ready to go; the ones outside are empties waiting to be loaded.)  This is how it&#x27;s made.<p>One of the big consumers of MGP ethanol is Frank-Lin Distillers&#x27; Products, which used to be in San Jose near the rail yard and is now in Fairfield, CA, where they are next door to a bottle plant and have their own railroad siding.  Frank-Lin makes about two thousand different alcohol-based products.[3] Some they sell themselves; some are outsourced brands made for others.  They used to make SKYY Vodka. SKYY was an entirely outsourced operation; the SKYY company itself just handled marketing and sales.  (SKYY later sold out to Campari, which moved production to some Campari plant.)<p>Frank-Lin takes in ethanol and does some additional re-distillation. They have a water de-ionizing plant which takes in city water.  They mix water, alcohol, and flavoring, then bottle, using a highly automated bottling line which can switch bottle types without a shutdown.  Out of their plant come brandy, whiskey, vodka, rum, tequila, and even wine brands. &quot;With an annual production capability of 15 million cases and on-premise tank storage capacity in excess of 1,500,000 gallons, Frank-Lin has the facilities and expertise to efficiently handle any project. Frank-Lin is a provider of contract bottling services for major national spirit brand owners.&quot;<p>Frank-Lin also handles distribution. They have an advantage in this - they&#x27;re not a distiller. US law requires three independent tiers - distillers&#x2F;brewers, distributors, and retailers.  Usually, that means a distiller makes and bottles an end-user product and sells it to a distributor, who sells it to a retailer. But Frank-Lin is considered a distributor - they buy their alcohol already distilled. So they get to remove one layer of middlemen.  Since they ship to almost every liquor store in the western US, it doesn&#x27;t cost them much more to add brands.<p>That&#x27;s how the booze industry really works.  All else is hype.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;goo.gl&#x2F;maps&#x2F;dQifXrzdWMH2" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;goo.gl&#x2F;maps&#x2F;dQifXrzdWMH2</a>
[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mgpingredients.com&#x2F;alcohol&#x2F;beverage&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mgpingredients.com&#x2F;alcohol&#x2F;beverage&#x2F;</a>
[3] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.frank-lin.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.frank-lin.com&#x2F;</a>
[4] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;goo.gl&#x2F;maps&#x2F;c92moNiXDGx" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;goo.gl&#x2F;maps&#x2F;c92moNiXDGx</a>
[5] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;goo.gl&#x2F;maps&#x2F;h5t3AeDhZ1U2" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;goo.gl&#x2F;maps&#x2F;h5t3AeDhZ1U2</a>