The craft spirits movement did not begin with marketing. It began with a handful of people who were dissatisfied with what the major distillers were producing and decided to do it themselves, in small batches, from locally sourced grain, in buildings that were not designed to be distilleries. What they produced was, at first, uneven. What they built, over two decades of iteration and failure and occasional brilliance, was a complete re-education of the bar industry in what spirits can be.
We have been following the craft spirits movement closely since its early days, and the picture in 2024 is more complicated and more interesting than the original story. The pioneers have matured. Some have been acquired. A new generation has entered with better equipment, better knowledge, and the benefit of twenty years of proof that this can work.
How the Craft Spirits Movement Started
The regulatory groundwork was laid in the US in the early 2000s, when a series of state-level licensing changes made it economically viable for small producers to distil and sell directly. The craft beer movement had already demonstrated that there was a market for locally produced, flavour-forward alternatives to mass-market products. The distilling world took note.
The early craft gin wave is where most people locate the beginning of the movement's commercial success. London-based distillers like Sacred and Sipsmith — both operating from residential or light-industrial premises with minuscule pot stills — demonstrated that you could produce gin of genuine quality outside the major distillery infrastructure. The Scotch whisky industry was watching and, eventually, adapting.
01
The Distillery Bar at Copper Works
Seattle, WA
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Distillery-attached / Educational
Copper Works operates one of the most transparent distillery bar programmes in the US, with floor-to-ceiling windows into the working still room and a menu that is built entirely around house-distilled products — gin, whisky, and two seasonal releases per year. The tasting flights are structured as education rather than marketing, with the staff trained to explain grain-to-glass provenance at a level most whisky bars could not match. The American Single Malt programme is tracking extremely well for a young distillery.
Order: The single malt tasting flight — three expressions from different barrel types, all distilled on site.
02
St. George Spirits Tasting Room
Alameda, CA
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Pioneer / Comprehensive
St. George is one of the foundational names in the American craft spirits movement — they have been distilling at the Alameda naval air station since 1982, which makes them genuinely pre-movement. Their tasting room is the most honest representation of the full breadth of craft distilling: fruit brandies, gin, absinthe, whisky, aged agricole rum. The range tells the story of a distillery that never settled on one category because the curiosity was always more interesting than the market research.
Order: The Terroir gin — made from Douglas fir, coastal sage, and Sonoma Valley Sauvignon Blanc grape. Nothing else like it.
03
Fremont Mischief Distillery Bar
Fremont, Seattle
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Grain-to-glass / Neighbourhood
Fremont Mischief mills their own grain, which is a relatively rare commitment even among serious craft distillers. The milling floor is visible from the bar, and the staff can explain the difference between their rye and wheat mash bills with the fluency of a brewer discussing hop varieties. Their Pacific Northwest Rye is the most characterful American rye we have tasted from a craft producer this year, and the cocktail programme makes full use of it.
Order: The Pacific Northwest Rye Manhattan — house rye, house barrel-aged sweet vermouth, Angostura bitters. Proper.
Local distilleries are changing what lands on bar menus everywhere.
Our guide examines how bars source their spirits and what it means for the glass in your hand.
Local Distilleries
The Maturation of the Movement
The craft spirits movement has grown up, and not entirely gracefully. The early years produced a lot of mediocre whisky released too young — craft distillers needed cash and did not always have the patience to wait for their stock to mature. The honest ones admitted this and priced accordingly. The less honest ones told stories about innovation that were mostly covering for underaged spirit.
That phase is largely behind us. The craft distillers who survived the first decade are now producing genuinely mature stock, and some of the American craft whiskies coming out of Pacific Northwest and Appalachian distilleries in 2024 are competing credibly with established names. The craft gin market, which does not require the same ageing infrastructure, has been producing consistently excellent product for a decade and is now deeply embedded in the premium bar trade. Rum has been the last major category to benefit from the craft movement, but the bars built around serious rum programs are now among the most compelling spirits destinations in the world — our best rum bars in the world guide covers where that journey has arrived.
04
Westland Distillery Tasting Room
SoDo, Seattle
$$$
American Single Malt / Premium
Westland is the most serious American single malt operation in the country, and their tasting room reflects the ambition of the programme. They work with multiple Washington State grain varieties, experiment extensively with local cask types, and release a Garryana edition matured in Oregon white oak that is unlike any whisky being made anywhere else in the world. The bar staff have done the work and can answer any question you have about the programme.
Order: The Garryana cask flight — three releases showing the evolution of the programme over time.
05
Matchbook Distilling
Escape, PA
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Farm-to-glass / Grain-focused
Matchbook farms their own heritage grain varieties — specifically Wapsie Valley corn and Maris Otter barley — and mills them on site. The whisky programme is unusual in how much it foregrounds the grain character rather than the distilling and maturation process, which reflects the founders' background in brewing and farming rather than conventional distilling. Their Heirloom Corn Bourbon is the most terroir-expressive American whisky we have tasted in years.
Order: The Heirloom Corn Bourbon neat, with a glass of filtered water alongside. Sip it slowly.
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How Craft Spirits Changed the Cocktail Bar
The impact on the cocktail bar trade is the clearest measure of the craft spirits movement's success. In 2005, a cocktail programme built around locally produced spirits was a curiosity or an affectation. In 2024, it is the default approach of any serious cocktail bar operating in a city with a functioning craft distilling scene.
This shift changes everything about how a cocktail menu is built. When a head bartender can visit a distillery, taste work in progress from the barrel, and make specific requests about finishing or blending, the resulting product is genuinely unique to that bar. The relationship between distiller and bartender becomes collaborative rather than transactional, and the drinks that result carry that specificity. Nowhere is this more visible than in the agave category, where the bars built around craft mezcal producers have redefined what a spirits program can look like. Our guide to the best mezcal bars in the world covers the addresses leading this movement.
06
Pouring Ribbons
East Village, NYC
$$$
Craft-focused / Menu-driven
Pouring Ribbons has maintained one of the most thoughtful craft spirits programmes in New York for over a decade, with their menu explicitly noting which bottles are from small independent producers. Their rotation is constant and their staff know the producer stories behind everything on the shelf — not as marketing but as genuine context for the drink in your hand. The menu structure, which maps cocktails by comfort and refreshment axes, is the most useful ordering framework we have seen at any bar.
Order: Tell the bartender your current mood and let them choose. They will not miss.
07
Whitechapel
SoMa, San Francisco
$$$
Gin specialist / Encyclopaedic
Whitechapel carries over 800 gins — the most comprehensive selection in the US and almost certainly one of the top ten globally. A significant proportion are from craft producers, and the bar team navigates the catalogue with a fluency that comes from genuine expertise rather than rote memorisation. Their house gin — made in collaboration with a local Bay Area distillery and tweaked each season — is the most practical expression of what a craft spirits partnership can produce for a bar programme.
Order: The Classic Gin and Tonic flight — three house selections showing the range of botanical profiles at different price points.
08
Roughstock
Bozeman, MT
$$
Western / Grain-to-glass
Roughstock is one of the original American craft whisky distilleries and their bar in Bozeman is worth the trip if you find yourself in Montana. The whisky they are now releasing — twelve-plus year stock that has been ageing since the early years of the operation — is at a level nobody would have predicted from the first releases. The Montana Single Malt in particular is a genuinely remarkable American whisky that most people outside the region have never encountered.
Order: The Montana Single Malt neat. Then again.
The craft beer world went through the same evolution a decade earlier.
Our craft beer bar guide covers the best venues championing independent brewers right now.
Craft Beer Bars
The craft spirits movement is not finished. It is entering its most productive phase — one where the pioneering work has been done, the failures have been absorbed, and the producers who survived are making some of the most interesting spirits in the world. The bars paying attention to this are building programmes with a specificity and character that the major-brand world simply cannot replicate. That gap is only going to widen.
A subset of this movement has turned toward natural and additive-free production — spirits made without colouring, chill-filtration, or flavour correction. The bars championing these products represent the most demanding end of the craft conversation. Our guide to the best bars for natural spirits covers twelve venues in London, Paris, New York, Copenhagen, and Lisbon that are building programmes around this emerging standard.
