Los Angeles Whiskey: The Local Bottles Worth Pouring
LA has more whiskey makers than most people realize, from a Hollywood distillery in a former mortuary to a 9-year cask-strength wheat whiskey. Here is what we have been drinking, and how a bar would use each one.
By The DiscoCraft team5 min read
Ask most people to name a Los Angeles whiskey and you will get a pause. Kentucky gets the bourbon headlines, and Napa and Sonoma get California's drinks press. But Los Angeles whiskey is real, and it is varied: a distillery in a converted Hollywood mortuary, a women-founded blend built for sharing, a recipe that started on Navy battleships, and the last barrels of a closed El Segundo distillery. We have been drinking our way through the LA whiskey on DiscoCraft, and this guide covers all of it, maker by maker, in alphabetical order.
Every bottle here is listed on DiscoCraft, and nobody paid to be included. Facts about each whiskey come from the maker's listing. The tasting impressions are ours, from bottles we drank ourselves.
What makes a whiskey "LA whiskey"
Before the bottles, one distinction that matters when you read a label. Some LA brands distill their whiskey here. Others source whiskey from a distillery elsewhere, then blend, proof and bottle it under their own name. Both are long traditions in American whiskey, and plenty of great bottles are sourced. The difference is worth knowing, though, so we note it for every maker below.
- Distilled in LA: Hollywood Distillery and Greenbar Distillery.
- Distilled in LA County, bottled in LA: Fallen Barrel House, from barrels made at R6 Distillery in El Segundo.
- Made in LA, per the label: Old 49.
- An LA brand, blended and bottled in Indiana: Lodestar.
Fallen Barrel House
Fallen Barrel House is an independent bottler with an unusual rule: it only bottles whiskey from distilleries that no longer produce. Its current release comes from R6 Distillery, a pot-still distillery in El Segundo founded in 2014 by fourth-generation distiller Rob Rubens. Fallen Barrel House bottles the remaining barrels one at a time, and when a barrel is gone, there will not be another.
The current bottle is a 9-year Straight Wheat Whiskey from a single barrel, #R-013, at cask strength: 67.3% ABV. The mash is 58% wheat and 42% yellow corn, aged in new American oak with a #4 char. The listing describes fresh baked bread and wildflower honey on the nose, and vanilla cream and light caramel on the palate.
Behind the bar: at 134.6 proof, this one is for a small neat pour or a drop of water, not a mixing well. It is the kind of limited bottle whiskey regulars ask about by name.
Greenbar Distillery
Greenbar describes itself as the first distillery in Los Angeles since Prohibition. Founders Melkon Khosrovian and Litty Mathew started out infusing spirits at home in 2004 and moved into a 1905 bow truss building in what is now the Arts District in 2010. Everything they make uses certified organic ingredients, and the portfolio includes Slow Hand whiskeys.
The Greenbar whiskey on DiscoCraft is a ready-to-drink one: Single Malt Whiskey+Soda, a canned highball at 7% ABV built on organic American single malt whiskey with apple, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon and a long list of other organic botanicals. The listing calls it light, floral and dry.
Behind the bar: a can that pours like a real highball, for patios, events and the 10pm rush.
Hollywood Distillery
Hollywood Distillery was founded in 2016 by three longtime Hollywood residents who could not understand why a neighborhood this obsessed with cocktails had never had a distillery of its own. California Assembly Bill 1246 gave them a legal path, and they set up in a converted 1920s Pierce Brothers Mortuary on Santa Monica Boulevard, across from Hollywood Forever Cemetery. It calls itself the first working distillery in Hollywood in almost 100 years, and everything is made from 100% California-sourced ingredients in small batches.
The whiskeys are called Zanja-Madre, after the aqueduct that shaped early Los Angeles. Zanja-Madre Rye Whiskey is made from California-grown rye and bottled at 46% ABV. Zanja-Madre Bourbon, also 46%, is made from 100% California-grown grains and, per the listing, aged a minimum of 7 to 8 years.
What we thought: we drank the rye on the rocks. It has a bit of a kick but stays smooth, with a little sweetness, and it honestly reminded us of Christmas. The listing's notes of cinnamon, clove, honey and dried fruit explain why.
Behind the bar: that spice makes the rye a natural Old Fashioned base, and a good one for a winter menu.
Lodestar Whiskey
Lodestar is a women-founded and led whiskey brand from Los Angeles. Cousins Anna Axster and Wendelin von Schroder spent more than a decade in music and film, picked up a taste for whiskey backstage, and noticed that whiskey was almost always marketed as a man's drink. When the pandemic stopped their entertainment work, they wrote a flavor brief for the whiskey they wanted to drink and went looking for partners to make it. Lodestar was the first whiskey backed by Distill Ventures' Pre-Accelerator program, which supports founders from underrepresented communities in the drinks industry.
Lodestar American Whiskey blends Straight High Rye Bourbon with American Single Malt Whiskey, an unusual combination for the category. It is blended, proofed to 90 proof and bottled by Cardinal Spirits, a small independent producer in Indiana. Its listing includes a Platinum medal (94 points) at the 2024 Distillers Challenge International Spirits Competition and a 2024 Beverage Testing Institute Gold.
What we thought: we had it on the rocks at Seven Grand, the downtown whiskey bar that has been pouring since 2007. It is the sweeter and smoother of the whiskeys we tried, and it felt like something to pair with a cigar.
Behind the bar: that soft sweetness makes it a strong Whiskey Sour base. For a seasonal twist, Lodestar's own Pumpkin Sour pairs it with apple brandy, pumpkin and a mulling-spice syrup.
Old 49
Old 49's recipe traces back to Nat Kidder, an electrical contractor who started distilling vodka aboard Navy battleships for sailors in 1940. He spent years refining a whiskey recipe, and on December 5, 1941, he and his pregnant wife sailed for California, two days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. He finalized the whiskey in 1949, which is where the name comes from. His grandson, David Glicksman, relaunched the recipes from a Los Angeles garage in 2016 with Aaron Fitzgerald, and the brand says it is now sold at more than 300 locations across Southern California and the West Coast.
Old 49 California Whiskey is bottled at 40% ABV and, per the brand, distilled, barreled and bottled by hand from Nat Kidder's original recipe. Its listing compares it to a smooth Irish whiskey, with the vanilla and spice of Kentucky bourbon.
Behind the bar: at 80 proof and built for smoothness, it is a friendly highball or a well pour with a story your bartenders can tell.
Putting LA whiskey on your menu
A local whiskey earns its spot when guests can taste the difference and your staff can tell the story in one sentence. "Distilled in a 1920s mortuary across from Hollywood Forever" does that. So does "the last barrels from a closed El Segundo distillery."
Browse every Los Angeles craft whiskey on DiscoCraft, or widen the search to California whiskey and the rest of the state's distilleries.
