Glenn Howerton is on a roll. It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia aired its 16th season with a brilliantly dark and hilarious Dennis-focused final episode. Well-deserved awards buzz is building around Howerton’s fantastic turn in tech-biopic BlackBerry (one of President Obama’s favorite films of 2023). Then there’s Four Walls (one of my favorite pours of 2023), the Irish-American whiskey that Howerton launched with his Sunny co-stars Charlie Day and Rob McElhenney.
The whisky smartly launched in a place where the average whiskey drinker can not only afford a bottle but enjoy it when they crack it open. In a whiskey market overloaded with elite bottles that carry price tags that’d make a Rockefeller wince, Four Walls hits high marks for drinkability and findability.
I was lucky enough to sit down with Howerton — an avowed whiskey nerd — to talk about how he wanted Four Walls to come together. The most important thing I took away from our chat was that Howerton deeply cares about whiskey while also wanting you to be able to get his whiskey. Again, smart. And while the whiskey has only launched in a few key markets to get a foothold, it feels like 2024 is going to be a big year for Four Walls “The Better Brown” and we’re here for it.
And look, I get it. I work in whiskey 24/7 and have seen endless celebrity whiskeys come and go. Yes, Howerton knows he’s at an advantage with Four Walls. But Howerton’s deep love of whiskey and a truly deep desire to create something people will love (and that he can be proud to call his own) shines through more than any free marketing from pop culture stardom. This is a passionate whiskey maker creating something that we all can enjoy. That’s exciting so let’s dive in!
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First, I’ve heard through the grapevine that you’re a real whiskey drinker. You’ve spent time learning and enjoying good whiskey for years. Can you walk us through your whiskey journey to Four Walls?
Yeah, this is not a novelty for me. This is my life. I’ve been a AAA massive whiskey fan and whiskey drinker for over 20 years. So my biggest fear in getting into this was that we weren’t going to be able to create something that I would reach for. And I am just honestly blown away that we were able to achieve at this price point. The truth is I’m very, very proud. I actually do get emotional when I talk about it.
it’s your baby
It’s my baby.
You know how hard it is to put a whiskey on the shelf that is both findable, affordable, and good. It’s a hard thing to accomplish. Talk me through the push to make a whiskey for the people that they can actually find and enjoy.
This has kind of become my life right now and I’m very passionate about it. And yeah, it is. Luckily with online retail, we can expand our reach a little bit as we slowly expand and make it into stores and bars all over the place.
Still, you have to start somewhere, so where can you get Four Walls right now?
We’re going to be in stores and bars in Pennsylvania, New York, Florida, and California over the next couple of months and then we’ll slowly roll it out to the other states.
Those are the big ones to start off in. It feels like you’re truly thinking about this for the long run as opposed to just capitalizing and flooding the market.
You know, it’s all a little bit of a testing ground. We don’t want to get out over our skis on this. We want to roll it out slowly. We wanna roll it out intelligently. We want the momentum to build. We’re not trying to sell 100,000 cases in our first year. I think that would be a massive mistake because you can sell 100,000 … but my biggest fear is that those cases just sit there and people don’t drink it. Then in year two, no one comes calling for more. We really, really, really want to win the hearts and minds of people with this.
That’s why we’re rolling it out slowly and trying to be smart and very targeted in our approach.
That’s a nice approach to hear — the opposite of just cashing in is always the way to go when you want to build generational whiskey. I also feel like you could come around to Four Walls without necessarily having to be, how can I put this, in the know about your pop cultural influence?
It was very important to us from the very beginning of Four Walls that this brand needed to stand on its own without us. This needed to be the kind of thing that had such a specific vibe and aesthetic to it. And then obviously the liquid had to be up to snuff and really taste good so that it would be the kind of thing that people would buy even if we weren’t involved.
And, of course, the fact that we’re involved is a turbo boost. We have to be realistic and not pretend it’s not. But I don’t always know why people will find or buy our whiskey. People will buy Four Walls maybe a novelty as an Irish American whiskey. Some people will buy it because they’re big whiskey drinkers. Other people will buy it just because they’re fans and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. But one thing that I’m sure of is that they’re not gonna buy it again if it’s not good.
For sure. Walk me through making a good whiskey.
Honestly, my biggest fear as a whiskey drinker and as someone fortunate enough to enjoy some pretty high-end whiskey, I didn’t want to slip on the quality. I don’t drink that often at home. So when I do, I usually drink really good stuff.
Same. You don’t want to waste that moment on a mediocre pour because that’s your drink or two for the night or maybe even a week!
Exactly. That was my biggest fear — that we weren’t gonna be able to create something that I would reach for but at a price point that is affordable for everybody. And that took some time.
That led you to an Irish American blend, which is heating up right now.
It took a lot of work, tasting a lot of whiskeys, to find the right source for the Irish whiskey and the right source for the rye … and then find the right blend. I know it sounds fun to the average drinker but it took quite a bit of work.
How did you test your blends? I really feel like this is a bartender-forward everyday pour…
We’ve got a master blender working with us and he’s brilliant. Once we’ve narrowed it down internally to four or so blend options, we sent it around to a lot of different bartenders. We asked them to taste it and then mess around with it to make sure that it held up in cocktails. We were looking for an elevated whiskey that held up on cocktails in ways that you know, your traditional Irish whiskey often doesn’t. And no disrespect to classic Irish whiskey, I love a lot of it, but we all know it’s not the cornerstone of whiskey cocktails.
We both know bourbon is having a moment. But y’all went with Irish and Rye as your blend. How did you land on America’s grassier cousin over the sweet tooth of borubon?
You know, more than anything my go-to over the last five years has been rye whiskey, which is another reason why I was sort of insistent upon mixing it with rye. My gut feeling when we started this was that we were going to create something that had the best qualities of two styles of whiskeys. Irish whiskey is, of course, very smooth and easy to drink but also a little sweet. So for me, bourbon didn’t feel like the right fit. I worried about bourbon because I don’t like it when drinks get too sweet.
It was just gonna be kind of sweet on sweet cherry on caramel on honey…
Exactly. I was a little concerned about that. So that’s why we kind of went in the direction of rye whiskey.
Now that you’ve made a whiskey, how has it changed the way that you drink whiskey?
Gosh, you know what? That would be a good exercise. What I have done is put Four Walls up against its closest competitors in a side-by-side with, you know, Bushmills or Jameson. But I haven’t specifically started to compare in terms of drinking other whiskey of all different kinds like blended Scotch and American blends. I think that’s a good idea. I’m gonna do that.
