One in 8700

Raj Bhakta is a man of many passions, and his life thus far has been about following those passions. Only in his 30s, Bhakta has already accomplished more than most do in a lifetime.
“My life shows the effective employment of attention deficit disorder,” said Bhakta.
Some of Bhakta’s long held interests are politics, history and entrepreneurship. While in his senior year of high school, Bhakta wrote a book about the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which he hopes will finally be published this year.
After graduating from Boston College, Bhakta’s plan was to attend the Officer Candidate School for the Marines, but a broken shoulder prevented him from enrolling. Instead, Bhakta dabbled in investment banking in New York City.
“However, I soon realized that I did not want to be working for anybody but myself,” said Bhakta.
Not long after quitting the banking firm, Bhakta embarked on his first of many entrepreneurial endeavors; 23 at the time, he started a company called Automovia, which was eventually sold to Chrysler in 2003.
That same year, Bhakta decided to try his hand at his family’s hotel business, which he said was a huge financial success. He soon decided to change directions.
“I grew tired of my father breathing down my neck the whole time,” said Bhakta.
He was not bored for long, though, as that same year, Bhakta discovered the TV show “The Apprentice.”
“I had never owned a TV, and still don’t to this day, but my friends told me that I just needed to try out for the show,” said Bhakta.
Heeding his friends’ advice, Bhakta beat out thousands of candidates and earned a spot on the show.
“The Apprentice was interesting,” said Bhakta. “The show brings out many of the least attractive elements of human behavior. People have got their knives out and are trying to stick it into each others’ backs.”
Bhakta did his best not to take the show too seriously.
“I tried to insulate myself from getting too caught up in the madness,” he said.
Even though Bhakta did not win the show, he remembers his experiences fondly. One if his favorite memories is asking tennis star Anna Kournikova out on a date. Kournikova agreed to go out with Bhakta only if he could return one of her five serves. Unfortunately, he was unsuccessful. As punishment, Bhakta had to run around Arthur Ashe Stadium in his boxer shorts.
“Another highlight of the show was when I got to be a judge on Miss USA, along with Michael Phelps, Molly Sims and Frederick Fekkai,” he said.
Bhakta said that another of his favorite experiences on the show was, ironically, his firing.
“When most people get fired they cry and have breakdowns,” he said. “When I got fired I asked out Donald Trump’s assistant.”
Unlike Kournikova, she said yes.
After his run with “The Apprentice,” Bhakta began to pursue his political passions. After working for the White House in an outreach program that worked to recruit young voters, Bhakta was recruited by the Republican Party to run for Congress in 2006.
Running in a district close to Philadelphia, Bhakta encountered immediate problems with the media.
“As a Republican who had been on a reality TV show, the local media had already written my story before they knew my name,” he said. “And the story wasn’t good.”
Bhakta knew that if he wanted media attention, he needed to get it on a national level. He decided to make border control a main piece of his platform. To attract attention, Bhakta went to great lengths.
“I rode an elephant and crossed the Rio Grande with a mariachi band in order to show how open the border was,” he said.
The scheme worked in grabbing the media’s interest. According to Bhakta, his stunt showed “the absurdity of our policies. Trillions of dollars were being spent in the name of national security, but there is no border control whatsoever. I wanted to put a light on the absurdity of national American security policy.”
Still, it did not help him to win the election. As for any prospects for running in the future, Bhakta remains hesitant.
“When we begin to reap what we have sown in terms of fiscal irresponsibility, I will think about running for office again,” he said. “But at the current moment, the nation is in a toxic haze of denial.”
After his loss, Bhakta had no clear plan for what to do with his life.
“But then it dawned on me, that I really wanted to go and find an Indian Steve Irwin,” he said.
He traveled through India’s national parks, but unfortunately was unsuccessful in his quest.
After returning to the U.S., Bhakta purchased a farm in Shoreham, Vt., in 2007. A native of Philadelphia and a part-time resident of New York City, Bhakta had been up to Vermont many times to visit a friend who lives nearby. He decided to pursue another one of his passions — whiskey — to make his property productive after spending a cold Vermont winter on his farm.
Putting his entrepreneurial skills to work, Bhakta made the nation’s first single estate rye distillery, naming his company WhistlePig. The company has received praise from a multitude of sources, and was named one of the top five whiskeys of the year by Wall Street Journal.
“Business is booming,” said Bhakta.
However, just having a whiskey company was not enough for Bhakta, who felt that it was necessary to have brand mascots as well. A few months ago, he bought Maude and Mortimer, two Kune Kune pigs who are cousins, to fill this role. He has hired a pig trainer to teach his animals to be well behaved so they can make their debut with him this summer in New York City.
“The pigs will walk with me in the city down the most exclusive streets, into the fanciest bars and restaurants, and down the red carpet,” he said.
He has also gotten the pigs custom made clothing; Maude has a Chanel-style dress, and Mortimer has a seersucker suit.
“The company has to be well represented,” said Bhakta. “Pigs need to feel a little glamour too.”
Currently, the pigs stay in Shoreham. He seems to have bonded well with them, as Maude and Mortimer sometimes sleep in his bedroom.
However, Bhakta said he “draws the line at [his] bed.”
Bhakta has always valued his company’s relationship with the College, as he has employed some students as interns. In fact, WhistlePig’s first bottle of whiskey was bottled with the help of Middlebury students. He hopes to recruit more interns for summer and year-round positions when he gives a talk on entrepreneurship and risk on April 25 at 4:30 p.m. in McCardell Bicentennial Hall. Bhakta’s goal is to find students willing to care for his pigs in New York and make a mini-series on YouTube detailing the pigs’ lives in the big city.