“I like to say that Woody Creek Distillers make the finest spirits in America—and I’m not just being cheeky,” says William H. Macy while twisting a glass of whiskey in his hand. It’s a wild feeling sitting across a dinner table from a guy like Macy, someone you’ve idolized most of your adult life. You can’t help but think of Jerry Lundegaard, the bumbling Minnesotan kidnapper/car salesman from one of the greatest films of our time, Fargo. Other moments he’s talking and all you imagine is Frank from Shameless addressing you. So you shake your skull to clear the daydreams and try hard to pay attention to what the hell he’s saying.
“I know there are other great spirits, but I am saying there are none better,” Macy continues earnestly. Then he pauses, considers our small table of journalists for a moment. “And I’ll also say there are a whole lot that are worse.”
We’re all gathered deep in the forest wilderness of Woody Creek, Colorado, in a deliriously charming abode dubbed the Hobbit House. Crafted of hand-stacked stone, stained lead glass and ancient repurposed wood, the Hobbit House acts as a sort of symbolic home base for Woody Creek Distillers. The plucky spirits venture was birthed here in this rural outpost outside Aspen and now distills in nearby Basalt, celebrating 13 years of existence in a very tough industry.
Founded in 2012 by engineers Pat Scanlan and Mark Kleckner, and aided by Pat’s wife Mary, you’d be excused for assuming Woody Creek Distillers recruited Macy as a hired celebrity goon. But the two-time Emmy Award and four-time Screen Actors Guild Award winner’s entrance into the fold is about as organic as it gets. You see Macy’s wife, the Desperate Housewives, Transamerica and Sports Night actress Felicity Huffman, grew up right here in Woody Creek. In a decision Macy jokes was “an excellent husband move,” the couple bought Huffman’s childhood home. One morning while gazing out their back window, Macy saw their pasture carpeted with snow-white flowers, which he assumed were petunias. Felicity’s brother informed Macy those were actually potatoes—and that he’d made a trade with their neighbors, the Scanlans, that in exchange for haying the family’s fields they’d allow the Scanlans to grow potatoes in one of the pastures.
“About a week after that Mark knocks on the door and says, ‘Bill, I don’t know if you know this, but Mary, Pat and I have started a distillery. It’s down in Basalt,’” Macy recalls of the origin story as we cut Wagyu ribeye and sip tumblers of Woody Creek Bourbon. “So I said, ‘I’m going to stop you right there. I’m in.’ And that is how I became the ‘Spokesdude’ for Woody Creek Distillers.”
The Woody Creek team struck gold immediately out of the gate with this auspicious potato vodka, winning Double Gold, Best Vodka and even Best Overall Spirit at their first prize fight, the 2015 San Francisco World Spirits Competition. Now the brand offers a suite of spirits including two gins (traditional Colorado Gin and butterfly pea blossom and rhubarb-infused Mary’s Select Gin), along with a slew of rye and bourbon whiskeys. All made with grains 100 percent sourced from Colorado (with the exception of some gin botanicals), distilled in their towering German-made Christian Carl copper stills. Numerous limited-edition bottlings fill out the roster, such as a wondrous LTO bourbon made exclusively with rare heritage Butcher’s Blood corn we would later sample at the Basalt distillery.
Our favorite recent expression, however, is the single barrel of rye hand-picked by their “Spokesdude,” the aptly named Woody Creek Distillers William H. Macy Reserve, Batch 2. Distilled from 100 percent rye, a very rare and difficult process due to the foamy nature of distilled rye, the juice was washed a full decade in new American oak barrels before being bottled at 100 proof (50 percent ABV). The extra aged, bottled-in-bond rye coats the palate with honey crisp apple, singed orange peel and yellow raisin; yet the 10 years in wood doesn’t diminish the rye’s clove, cinnamon and baking spice finish.
“When Mary, Pat and Mark started this thing they had two abiding principles: One, they wanted to make the spirits that they wanted to drink, which I so applaud,” Macy tells us at the Hobbit House, just before he busts out his ukulele to serenade us with song. “In my business, I know a lot of big producers who are trying to figure out what the audience wants. And as smart as they are, for every time someone’s figured it out they have failed a hundred times. I think the only way to please the world is to start with yourself: Do you like it?” he asks no one in particular.
“Then put it out there. The second principle they had was to make the finest spirits possible without cutting corners and without shortcuts. And that has continued to be the abiding first principles, and we’ve not varied from it.” You can find Woody Creek Distillers William H. Macy Reserve, Batch 2 for its SRP of $199 at their Basalt distillery, as well as finer spirits retailers.
Follow Deputy Editor Nicolas Stecher on Instagram at @nickstecher and @boozeoftheday.
