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Last year, genre favorite Matthew Lillard and Justin Ware (Bloodsucking Bastards) created a high-end spirit experience with Quest’s End Whiskey. After successfully celebrating their passion for gaming with Quest’s End, branching out into horror as the next move “made sense,” says Lillard, “because I have an authentic appreciation for the other ‘isms’ that community holds.”
Lillard has deep ties to the horror community, at conventions he consistently has one of the longest lines in the house. From Scream‘s Stu Macher to Shaggy in the many iterations of Scooby Doo, and most recently, his role in Five Nights At Freddy’s, Lillard is a fan favorite.
“The idea was can we authentically create something that is a love letter to that community? Our answer is Macabre Spirits, which is this delicious Reposado out of Jalisco, Mexico. All of our products come direct to customer and it has this unboxing experience that’s really awesome. It comes with an 80-page novella, a terrifying story written by Mike Flanagan, who’s arguably the modern master of horror. Super fun. It’s like a love letter to horror fans, and we hope they’re into it.”
This all sounds amazing, and it also sounds like a lot of work. So don’t Lillard and Ware just slap their names on the label and be done with it? He’s got a quick and unsurprising answer for that one:
“Because I think that’s gross. I think it’s gross to trade that. First of all, I am not famous enough to do what Clooney did. Those guys or Ryan Reynolds who went out and sort of built great brands and then used their name and likeness to promote it.” I imagine I’m not in the minority here when I say we would argue that last point.
“We’re speaking to communities specifically. To create a tequila and then slap a skeleton on the side of it and say ‘Horror fans, this is for you.’ I think that’s really shitty. I think that’s transacting on people’s passion. It’s using their passions to sell something. People probably do a lot of business like that, but we think it’s gross. The thing we start with is, what are we giving back to people? What value do we add for people when they purchase our goods?”
Macabre Spirits has set out to create more of an experience for fans, fro unboxing through the actual consumption of their product. “That’s why you get a full-on book that’s like 80 pages long, and our hope is that you sit there and enjoy your tequila if you like tequila. We’re hoping that you buy our tequila and you sit there and read this really awesome book.”
And as for that really awesome novella written by Mike Flanagan, how did that come to be? Lillard and Flanagan recently worked together on Life of Chuck, a partnership that came about thanks to lunch with a mutual friend. “We did a very Hollywood thing. We had a mutual friend named Ilan and Ilan was like, ‘Hey, any interest in meeting Mike Flanagan?
“I didn’t know Flanagan’s work at the time, and the only reason I say that is that I fell in love with him. The three of us sat there for three hours and had these great conversations and he’s a lovely man.” When Lillard asked what he should watch, Flanagan responded, “Watch Midnight Mass.”
And so Lillard did, ” I went home that night, and I devoured the first three episodes. I fell in love with the entire series, and I texted him, ‘First of all, you have so many monologues. They’re terrifying. I’d love to be in your world someday.’” Within that, Lillard shared the idea of Macabre Spirits with Flanagan. “There’s no better way to launch this brand, outside of getting Stephen King himself.”
Flanagan jumped at the chance and, of course, went above and beyond on the novella partnership, penning Rare, Fine & Limited: “We said 15,000 words. He ended up at some point in the middle of the night texting me, ‘If I go over, are you all right?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, great. Totally.’ He ended up writing just under 80,000 words.”
There is definitely a downside of creating something so bespoke that it changes for every single release: “I have to tell you something, it’s so exhausting. We are doing this wrong. Every four months, we bring out a product that changes the liquid. This is a piece painted by Mia Bergeron. She read the story, and she interpreted it into this painting, and then we put it on the front of the bottle. That changes every time. The story changes every time. The liquid changes every time. Bro, it’s hard.”
But we know fans and collectors appreciate all the work that goes into Macabre Spirits behind the scenes before arriving on our doorsteps. “Our hope is that when you open our package, you feel seen. When you open our package you feel like, ‘Oh, this is for me,’ and that people enjoy it, and that’s that. That’s what we’re doing. And if it misses, then we’re doing it all for naught.
“When you see our shipping box, it will blow people’s minds. We haven’t mailed it yet, but it’s epic, and the juice is delicious. We are heaving passion at it, and we hope people receive it.”
Order your own mind-blowing box of Macabre Spirits delicious juice right here.
