Ja Rule On Amber & Opal, His New Honey Rye Whiskey Brand

Ja Rule admits he wasn’t a whiskey drinker — until he released his own. 

“I’m not really a heavy drinker like that,” says the Queens-born hip-hop icon. “I’ll drink a sip of wine, a little red wine, a little white wine, and be easy with it.”

But in 2024, along with longtime friends Herb Rice, Sandy Sandiford, and Kelvin Barton, Ja Rule released his own honey-infused rye whiskey, Amber & Opal, in Maryland. Now he hopes to expand it across the country. 

What drew a non-whiskey drinker to the spirits business in the first place? It started off as an investment idea, says Ja Rule. “We bought this warehouse full of whiskey [in Ohio], and there were barrels that were aging. We were going to age them to seven years and sell them at a premium. What happened was, a red light goes off and [we say], let’s create a brand, a business with this.”

But when they decided they wanted to create a niche “honey botanical whiskey,” they were advised not to use the barrels they purchased. (Those barrels are now being put to use for a 10-year-old “premium bourbon” that Amber & Opal will release in a few years.) 

This led the foursome in a different direction. Baltimore-based Rice, who Ja Rule calls a “whiskey connoisseur,” sought out a local distillery, and connected with the Baltimore Spirits Company, which was founded in 2015 with the “raison d’etre of bringing Maryland rye production back to it’s cultural home.”

In partnership with the spirits company, the founders settled on a blend of Maryland Straight Rye Whiskey — aged for two years in medium-charred oak barrels — with orange blossom honey and botanicals like lapsang souchong tea, cinnamon, ginger, and fig. The botanicals are sourced from another Baltimore business, Wight Tea Company.

Rice says they tasted 30 types of honey to find the one that would best suit the smokiness of the lapsang souchong and the natural spiciness of rye. Ja Rule adds that his entry-level palate and his friends’ whiskey expertise were the perfect “yin and yang” to create a whiskey that is suitable for both veteran drinkers and the “whiskey-curious.” 

“We wanted an entry point for new whiskey drinkers,” says Ja Rule. Although their product is sweet, Rice notes that it isn’t a liqueur, but a flavored whiskey with a 80-proof backbone.

They recommend serving it neat, with a little ice, in a Gold Rush (which they call the “Amber Rush”), in an Old Fashioned, or in a rye whiskey riff on a Moscow Mule. 

“I’m a Mule guy,” says Ja Rule. “I love Moscow Mules. I do Mexican Mules [with tequila]. So now I’m doing whiskey Mules.”

The name of the brand reflects both the amber liquid inside the bottle and the diversity that Ja Rule, Rice, Sandiford, and Kelvin hope to embody.

“Opal is a precious stone that comes in various hues, and that’s what we want Amber & Opal to be about,” Ja Rule says. “We want it to be about inclusivity and all-inclusive to everybody. A lot of times when people see it’s a Black-owned brand, they think that means Black only. We don’t want people to look at our brand as that. This is a brand [that is] first owned by four Black guys, but this is for everyone and we want that to be our statement.”

In addition to Baltimore, Amber & Opal is now sold at Total Wines locations in California, Florida, New York, and New Jersey, and also ships to 35 states via seelbach.com. They plan to eventually expand nationwide, says Ja Rule, but they’re not in a hurry.

“We don’t want to rush and do it the wrong way,” he says. “We want to move very strategically, so we want to own our markets. Herb’s in Baltimore, Sandy’s out in Atlanta, I’m here in New York and New Jersey.”

Ja Rule, who is joining Nelly for portions of his “Where the Party At” tour this summer, plans to promote the product at stops along the way, visiting Total Wines locations during the daytime and meeting fans.

He also plans to release a long-awaited album — his first in over a decade — in June. So how does releasing a whiskey compare to releasing an album?

“It’s very nerve-wracking when you have a brand-new product and you have to witness people trying it for the first time,” says Ja Rule. “It’d be the equivalent of me going onstage, performing a brand new record,” he says with his trademark husky laugh.

But the goal is perhaps more straightforward.

“I want to see a lot of empty bottles.”

Baltimore Spirits Company Amber & Opal Honey Botanical Whiskey; $69.99 for one 750-milliliter bottle at seelbachs.com