Matthew Lillard and Justin Ware became friends over 15 years ago, meeting on the set of a movie Matthew starred in and Justin wrote called The Pool Boys… and that friendship has now evolved into a unique spirit business.
Lillard – best known for playing Shaggy in the Scooby-Doo movies and the murderous Stuart in the original Scream and most recently Steve Raglan in Five Nights at Freddy’s – teamed up with Ware – who has also wrote and starred in Bloodsucking Bastards and co-created the Syfy animated series Hell Den – to launch Find Familiar Spirits.
Their first launch is Quest’s End Whiskey, a limited edition premium whiskey that has gone above and beyond their expectations.
Their initial release – Paladin – the first of 16 different whiskeys that will feature a character integral to an immersive fantasy story told throughout each drop – already sold out of its 5,000 bottle run, and with a waiting list of nearly 25,000, they decided to release Paladin + 1, featuring a different bottle with a blue tinted edition.
Paladin + 1 goes on sale at QuestsEndWhiskey.com on November 15 with another 5,000 bottles, and I was able to chat with Lillard and Ware via Zoom in an exclusive Daily Mail interview to discuss how these fast friends turned into business owners, they story they’re trying to tell over these 16 separate whiskey releases and much more.
Business partners: Matthew Lillard and Justin Ware became friends over 15 years ago, meeting on the set of a movie Matthew starred in and Justin wrote called The Pool Boys… and that friendship has now evolved into a unique spirit business
Writer: Lillard – best known for playing Shaggy in the Scooby-Doo movies and the murderous Stuart in the original Scream – teamed up with Ware (above)- who has also wrote and starred in Bloodsucking Bastards and co-created the Syfy animated series Hell Den – to launch Find Familiar Spirits.
Paladin: Paladin + 1 goes on sale at QuestsEndWhiskey.com on November 15 with another 5,000 bottles
Story: Justin Ware provides a look at the Paladin story that is included with each bottle of the first Quest’s End Whiskey release
Lillard began by saying that he and Ware, ‘have been friends for a long time,’ though that was not often the case with other writers he’s worked with in the past.
‘We became such good friends that we kept trying to find other things to do in this Godforsaken town. We, for a long time, went out with a pitch we set up for Mark Burnett and his company, we tried to put a couple of movies together, an animated series, I mean, we really took a bunch of hacks at it. And I think the thing we’re drawn to is that we just sort of never got defeated,’ Lillard said.
‘I think it’s hard in this business to keep your head up and keep your friendships going and, for better or for worse, we went out and just sort of never really found purchase, but that spirit, that fighting spirit in the two of us is what drew us together, and I think our relationship grew in strength over that time,’ Lillard added.
The actor added that just before our Zoom call, he, ‘just got my first bottle in the mail, which was an emotional full circle’ for him.
Ware added, ‘It’s really exciting too because even the most successful person in Hollywood has a 10 to 20 percent hit ratio,’ but Lillard added, ‘I don’t think anyone has a 10 to 20 percent hit ratio. I think that’s mythical.’
‘It was really cool with this to make something tangible and put something out into the world, because all you really want to do in this industry is tell stories and build community and have fun with people, and I think you lose sight of that a lot,’ Ware added.
‘What was really fun about this was getting to create something really tangible that people can hold and drink and put it out into the world and build a community around that that we have more of an ability to control our own destiny with,’ Ware added.
When I asked how long ago they started having conversations about putting a whiskey company together, Ware admitted, ‘Not that long ago, really, for the speed of which we were able to put this together,’ joking it was the, ‘only positive thing’ to come out of the writers and actors strikes, because it quickly became their, ‘full-time job in the last six months.’
Longtime friends: Lillard began by saying that he and Ware, ‘have been friends for a long time,’ though that was not often the case with other writers he’s worked with in the past
Hard: ‘I think it’s hard in this business to keep your head up and keep your friendships going and, for better or for worse, we went out and just sort of never really found purchase, but that spirit, that fighting spirit in the two of us is what drew us together, and I think our relationship grew in strength over that time,’ Lillard added
Hit ratio: Ware added, ‘It’s really exciting too because even the most successful person in Hollywood has a 10 to 20 percent hit ratio,’ but Lillard added, ‘I don’t think anyone has a 10 to 20 percent hit ratio. I think that’s mythical’
Map: Ware shows off the elaborate map of the land this story is being told in, which is featured in the Paladin book
‘The first conversation was about two years ago… two years ago February, so not quite two years ago,’ Ware admitted. ‘Tim Sparapani, who I’ve actually known since high school, was one of the founders of Blue Run, which is a very super-successful super-premium spirits label that’s grown enormously in the last few years. I was just sort of watching what he was doing and he was having so much fun with it, and I was watching what Matt was doing with Beadle and Grimms, and having such a connection with those fandoms, and we just started having a conversation about these communities and these fandoms that are so loyal and they’re so invested and engaged in their worlds, and just sort of being a little mystified that nobody had put those two… cross the streams, in a good way, between spirits and fandoms.’
When asked about the story they are going to tell over these premium whiskey releases, Lillard added, ‘So we identified this market, this community that we want to serve with Quest End, and for us it was, how do we deliver something for the fans that they would be as excited about receiving as much as they are about the juice in the bottle.’
He added they were both, ‘really excited’ about the idea of ‘having an ongoing story that stretches across the entire span of Quest End, which we believe at this point is going to be 16 different bottles.
Lillard added that they then reached out to Kate Welch, ‘a game designer in the Dungeons and Dragons world, she was one of the first game leads ever hired by Wizards of the Coast’ and Tyler Jacobson, ‘a world-renowned artist in fantasy space.’
He added that they all, ‘worked collectively to create a narrative framework around the entire drop,’ and that while they all, ‘talked through what it could be, and then Kate went off and wrote it, and Tyler went off and painted it. And what you see now is the iterations of their hard work.’
Quest End is the first brand launched through Lillard and Ware’s Find Familiar Spirits company, and while they wouldn’t tease any of their future products, their aims are the same with Quest End.
‘It’s one thing to identify community, and it’s another thing to authentically reach out to them and give them something they’re going to be excited about. That’s what we’re (Find Familar Spirits) committed to doing. Finding communities we’re authentically excited about and finding ways to add value to these communities, and, in a way, help bring these communities together over something as tried and true as a premium spirit,’ Lillard said.
Another member of the Quest End team is Ale Ochoa, the master blender who Ware said took on the immense challenge of blending different whiskeys to fit the story’s various characters.
First conversation: ‘The first conversation was about two years ago… two years ago February, so not quite two years ago,’ Ware admitted
Excited: When asked about the story they are going to tell over these premium whiskey releases, Lillard added, ‘So we identified this market, this community that we want to serve with Quest End, and for us it was, how do we deliver something for the fans that they would be as excited about receiving as much as they are about the juice in the bottle’
Community: ‘It’s one thing to identify community, and it’s another thing to authentically reach out to them and give them something they’re going to be excited about. That’s what we’re (Find Familar Spirits) committed to doing. Finding communities we’re authentically excited about and finding ways to add value to these communities, and, in a way, help bring these communities together over something as tried and true as a premium spirit,’ Lillard said
‘(She) is incredibly talented and just really took on this concept with gusto. We started talking about this idea of blending the whiskeys to match the characters and she really thought, “I’ve never had a challenge like that before,” so she took it very very seriously. We tasted a bunch of barrels, she put together a bunch of different recipes but we had lots of different conversations about what are the flavor profiles that go with a Paladin? Versus a Rogue, or a Warlock or a Dragon, which are our next three (releases),’ Ware said.
While they wouldn’t tease any aspects of future characters or releases – the Rogue is slated to arrive in 2024 – Ware said they wanted the first bottle – Paladin – to be smooth and clean and not as, ‘funky and weird.’
‘With Rogue, it’s a little more mischievous, I guess, but it’s gonna be really good,’ with Lillard adding there was a debate over which to release first.
‘We really liked Rogue and we really liked Paladin at the same time, and I literally said is there a world in which we just flipped the two? We liked them both, but do we want to lead with Rogue? Ale, to her credit, was like, “No! That is Rogue. They are very different. Rogue is Rogue, and Paladin is Paladin, and the two cannot be mixed!’ So I do think that speaks to her commitment to what we’re doing with the journey of the flavors being different every time and related to the characters,’ Lillard added.
The initial Paladin release went on sale in early October with a run of 5,000 bottles, which Ware admitted was hard to know if that was enough or too much.
‘We didn’t want to get out over our skis and crash because this is a super-premium product and we spent – you know really high-end glass and the whole process of doing it, we really wanted to deliver value,’ Ware said.
He also spoke about the High Roller’s Guild membership, which includes all of the first four releases – Paladin, Rogue, Warlock and Dragon – plus a signed lithograph by artist Tyler Jacobson and a virtual tasting party with Lillard and master blender Ale Ochoa.
‘We created a wait list, thinking, OK, we sold the first 5,000, we sold a lot more of the High Roller Guild’s than… we were shocked how many people wanted those, buying all four up front. We had an incredible response to that and we’re like, “OK, we’ll open a wait list and maybe you know if there’s 200 or 300 bottles in breakage – because you have to hold some aside in case there’s breakage – maybe then with the waitlist, we can sell 200 or 300 on the wait list later. Word just kept traveling to the point where we almost have 25,000 names on the wait list,’ Ware admitted.
The massive demand gave way to the release of Paladin + 1 – a freshly-numbered batch of 5,000 bottles with the same story as the Paladin release, but a new bottle with blue accents.
‘This is still a small drop again a second time, but we had that conversation of, we’re moving to Rogue in February, but we started this to sort of build a community and serve a fandom, and we ultimately decided we didn’t want to leave that many people behind coming out of the gate,’ Ware said.
Lillard added that the massive demand for Paladin did lead to them increasing Rogue’s numbers, noting that, ‘Every step we take is a step that we’re learning for the first time,’ and they’re trying to be, ‘as nimble as possible.’
‘We are trying to find our way through this, but that’s part of the exciting thing. We had this moment where you wake up one day and you have 1,000 people on the waiting list? What? That’s crazy! We sold out…you know we did $500,000 plus in the first nine hours then we sold out in two weeks. I think we had the last hundred bottles hanging out for like 10 days or two weeks and I’m like, “God we’ve got to get these bottles out of here,”’ Lillard joked.
High Roller: The High Roller’s Guild membership comes with all of the first four releases – Paladin, Rogue, Warlock and Dragon – plus a signed lithograph by artist Tyler Jacobson and a virtual tasting party with Lillard and master blender Ale Ochoa.
Demand: The massive demand gave way to the release of Paladin + 1 – a freshly-numbered batch of 5,000 bottles with the same story as the Paladin release, but a new bottle with blue accents
Small drop: ‘This is still a small drop again a second time, but we had that conversation of, we’re moving to Rogue in February, but we started this to sort of build a community and serve a fandom, and we ultimately decided we didn’t want to leave that many people behind coming out of the gate,’ Ware said
Every step: Lillard added that the massive demand for Paladin did lead to them increasing Rogue’s numbers, noting that, ‘Every step we take is a step that we’re learning for the first time,’ and they’re trying to be, ‘as nimble as possible’
Find our way: ‘We are trying to find our way through this, but that’s part of the exciting thing. We had this moment where you wake up one day and you have 1,000 people on the waiting list? What? That’s crazy! We sold out…you know we did $500,000 plus in the first nine hours then we sold out in two weeks. I think we had the last hundred bottles hanging out for like 10 days or two weeks and I’m like, “God we’ve got to get these bottles out of here,”’ Lillard joked
He admitted they were initially planning on doing a ‘bigger run’ but the distributor and bottler both said, ‘selling 200 or 300 bottles would be an achievement, that would be incredible.’
‘To say that we surpassed even our wildest dreams coming into this space, would be an understatement. It’s humbling, frankly, to be here, to build something, that has had such an incredible response. It’s like, Oh my God, we weren’t completely wrong. It’s been a really super fulfilling journey, this year and a half, that’s for sure,’ Lillard said.
Since Lillard has such a connection to tabletop games with his Beadle and Grimm’s company, I asked if there is any notion of turning the Quest End story into a tabletop game.
‘Sure, we’ve talked about that. In success, can you, at the end of the 16 drops, can you do an adventure? Can you do a book? Without giving too much away, but we have some very exciting plans for Dragon that are very game-centric that we think every gamer will love,’ Lillard said.
He added that, next year, their Find Familiar Spirits company has, ‘multiple brands coming out that we’re deep in the creative process right now that we are just as excited about.’
Part of the Quest End website is a virtual tavern, where, ultimately, after the releases sell out, the story will reside online, though there are more plans for the tavern.
‘Abraham Benrubi, a good friend of the company, he’s going to do a spoken word version of the story, and Scott Passarella, who is the accompanist on Faster, Purple Room, is actually doing the music for it. We heard the first pass last week, and it’s really cool. I think we’re gonna do a collection of recipes,’ Lillard said.
Lillard also discussed his new Amazon FreeVee series Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill!, a new improvised series revolving around celebrity D&D players playing with first-level characters as they go up against some of the game’s most deadly monsters, debuting Thursday, November 16.
‘Faster, Purple Worm is like a love letter to Dungeons and Dragons, a perfect pairing for Quest End, no doubt,’ Lillard said, adding that his companies Find Familiar Spirits and Beadle & Grimm’s are ‘very similar but two very different companies.’
Lillard admitted that Find Familiar Spirits is not, ‘a big monolithic sort of booze company,’ but that gives them the ability to try new, different and, most importantly, fun things, to engage with this growing community.
Gaming: Since Lillard has such a connection to tabletop games with his Beadle and Grimm’s company, I asked if there is any notion of turning the Quest End story into a tabletop game
Community: Ware added the great thing about the community is it is, ‘very broad,’ and they, ‘want to be as inclusive as possible’
On sale: The Paladin + 1 release of Quest’s End Whiskey will be on sale Wednesday, November 15 at QuestsEndWhiskey.com , with the second release, Rogue, debuting in February
‘The more we can sort of give back to the community, the more we can differentiate ourselves from every other brown liquor out there, the better off we are, and the better off the community is. We want to keep finding ways to bring people together,’ Lillard said.
Ware added the great thing about the community is it is, ‘very broad,’ and they, ‘want to be as inclusive as possible.’
‘We actually do talk a lot about making sure we can include as many people as possible in this, because for as much fun as we’re having, we want them to have as much fun,’ Ware said.
The Paladin + 1 release of Quest’s End Whiskey will be on sale Wednesday, November 15 at QuestsEndWhiskey.com, with the second release, Rogue, debuting in February.
