DISTILLING CRAFT SPIRITS.
SAN FRANCISCO.
OUR STORY
At Fat Labrador, we care about producing memorable, high-quality, small-batch craft spirits, based on the history and culture of California. After years of making beer professionally and for fun and developing mixed drinks we started exploring, creating, and distilling craft spirits in San Francisco. Using special ingredients and unique recipes we developed moonshining in our backyards we have launched our first expressions in California and online.
Our name is inspired by of our portly dogs, whom we dearly love.
We hope you enjoy these spirits as much as we do!
POCO, MAYA & MADDIE
Pocomo (“Poco”), Miacomet (“Maya”), and Madequecham (“Maddie”) are our true founders, the spirit of our distillery and inspiration. Oh, and there are some humans involved as well.
CHRISTOPHER DEAN
Christopher started making beer in 1989 when he co-founded the Old Detroit Brewing Co., in Detroit, Michigan. Old Detroit was sold to the Frankenmuth Brewery in 1991 and after spending 20+ years in the technology industry he started moonshining in his backyard in San Francisco and developed a love for making Whiskey, Rum, California Brandy, and Vodka.
MINOTT WESSINGER
Minott started following in the footsteps of his great-great grandfather, Henry Weinhard, the Pacific Northwest brewing pioneer, when he founded McKenzie River Corporation in the late 1980’s. He has been creating beer and spirits ever since.
MICHAEL CECCONI
Michael is the co-founder of M Squared Spirits. He has stepped out from behind the bar to connect to a wider audience with his best and most popular recipes. M Squared Spirits bottles beautifully balanced, artisanal cocktails that allow everyone to enjoy the delicious end-product of a recipe carefully crafted by a master mixologist. Bartender Emeritus at The Alembic in San Francisco, Michael teaches mixology classes for corporate team-building events, covering everything from gin to mezcal and tiki to avant-garde. Michael’s work has been featured in Food & Wine, The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and on The Today Show. Michael is lending his talents to Fat Labrador as a new co-founder.
Spirits
San Francisco, California, during the Gold Rush, was America’s quintessential “Whiskey Town”. Its “notorious Barbary Coast had crime, depravity, and viciousness, yet it possessed more glamour than any other area of vice and iniquity on the American continent.” San Francisco’s expansion and culture was driven by the influx of gold-seekers, the “49ers”, and the hordes of gamblers, thieves, harlots, politicians, and other “felonious parasites” who tagged along and developed a refined taste for California's fine food, spirits, and adventuring.
Fat Labrador Distillers is developing a range of Whiskey Town® mash-bills, including a Rye, a Sweet-feed Bourbon whiskey, beer-based whiskeys, and a range of California-inspired American Whiskeys. We are also finishing whiskey on Oak Staves in San Francisco, and in used Pinot Noir (local Sonoma Coast, Russian River) and Cabernet barrels (from Napa and Sonoma).
Today we have two releases:
3-Year Old Straight Bourbon
3-Year Old Straight Bourbon
Our signature 3-year Straight Bourbon Whiskey. Distilled and aged in Indiana, and craft finished on Oak Staves in San Francisco.
26-Year-Old American Whiskey
26-Year-Old American Whiskey
Our 26-year old American Whiskey, distilled in Indiana and Rick housed in Kentucky. This is a super smooth majority corn whiskey. We would put this American Whiskey against any from a smooth, easy drinking perspective.
Defender of the Realm
Defender Rum® is inspired by the maritime and naval histories of the United States, the American Colonies, California, and the Barbary Coast. To quote Fred Minnick, “It hard to underestimate the importance of Rum. In the last three centuries, Rum has been at the center of commerce, nation-building, wars at sea, and wars in court. No other spirit can tell so many tales of triumph and tragedy.”
We love rum because of its long American Colonial, Caribbean, and maritime history, centered around the New World, American and British navies, and what it means to us when we mix it with ginger beer, tonic, fruit juice or just sip it straight.
Our brand is an homage to Winston Churchill who was considered the “Defender Of The Realm” of the British Empire and the free world during WWII in the face of overwhelming Axis advances.
Our Rum is fermented with blackstrap molasses and brown sugar, is double distilled, and aged in new American Oak barrels.