It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost two years since actor and gaming entrepreneur Matthew Lillard and screenwriter Justin Ware, along with Blue Run Spirts co-founder Tim Sparapani, co-founded Find Familiar Spirits. This high-end adult spirits company combines genre storytelling with award-winning spirits craftsmanship.
I’ve had the pleasure of tasting the first two bottles of their D&D-inspired whiskey line, Quest’s End. As it turned out, both of those, Paladin and Rogue, took home the silver in the 2024 World Spirits Competition.
Now, after their four releases for season one, Find Familiar Spirits is back with Quest’s End season two! The first S2 release, Druid, went on sale to the general public on May 1st. Like previous releases, a bottle costs $149.99. The release includes the fifth chapter of the Dawn of the Unbound Gods saga, written by Andrea Stewart and illustrated by Tyler Jacobson.
I recently got a chance to sit down with Matthew Lillard to talk about Druid, Find Familiar Spirits, and some of his upcoming projects.
Me: Quest’s End, season two. What is new?
Matthew: We just went on sale less than two hours ago now. It’s going great. It’s a new season, new taste, new flavor, obviously new chapter and ongoing saga. (We have a) new blender. working with a new woman named Molly Troupe who’s come on board. She’s incredible. Her love language is gin. And so she’s bringing a really sort of herbaceous flavor profile to this Druid bottle.
We’re growing up and trying to figure out how to sell to more people and expand and grow as a company, as well as provide continued sort of excellence in the whiskey space.
Me: So, you’ve also got Macabre Spirits; the first bottle just came out recently.
Matthew: We went on sale October. It just started shipping last week. It was supposed to originally be tequila. And we had some pretty dramatic political things happening around tequila and administrations. And so we pivoted to Sotol, which is an American distillate, organically sourced from Texas. So we’re really excited to bring that, and the novella by Mike Flanagan.
Me: You’re joining the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) for Daredevil: Born Again season 2.
Matthew: I am, yes. I’m actually in New York now. I know if you can see it, but that’s the New York skyline. I’m in New York to shoot this week.
Me: I know you can’t talk too much about it, but how does it feel to be part of the…
Matthew: It feels great. I think that (with) the newest season I’ve got one more episode to watch, but it’s been incredible.
My friend runs it, name’s Dario (Scardapane), Dario is currently in Japan, is running the show. And I think Charlie’s great. think this cast is incredible. Deborah Ann Woll’s amazing. Obviously, Vincent’s remarkable. So being a part of the cast and sort of in the MCU for the first time, God knows I’ve wanted to be a part of it for so long. It just feels really lovely.
Me: San Diego Comic-Con, are you attending this year?
Matthew: As of right now, I don’t know. mean, I’ve got, obviously Five Nights at Freddy’s (2) comes out in December, and then Scream 7 comes out in January. I have not heard of either one of them appearing or if I’ll be invited.
Me: How about your D&D projects? Are we looking at a second season coming up for Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill!?
Matthew: What good question. Faster, Purple Worm has a source book coming out. We Kickstarted it last year. That source book is about to land. We’re really excited about that. The book’s great. 20 different adventures.
The book is gorgeous. Really proud of the work that team, our whole team did there. I think that we’re excited for people to start playing at home. It’s a super easy, accessible way to sort of game for a night. You don’t have to worry about long-term sort of ramifications. You don’t have to dig in too much. And it’s a super great way to gather and just play.
Obviously we’re doing live shows this year. We’re doing a bunch of cons. We’re performing at Gen Con for sure. Oh, cool. And there’s a chance that we do like a tour, go on the road a little, but that’s a long way off. All that said is that that format for us is still very much alive and awesome.
Me: Let’s circle back around to Quest’s End. You’ve got your whiskeys, you’ve got Macabre Sprits, are you looking to branch off in other ways?
Matthew: Yeah, we did (Whitestone) Courage with Critical Role this year. So that’s super exciting. It was great collaboration. That team’s fantastic to work with. We love them. We have a new brand coming. We have a new collaboration coming. And then early 2026, we have a new brand launching. So we have lots on the docket.
Me: But you can’t talk about it yet.
Matthew: I can’t talk about, I mean, I would say nothing for the launch. I was not even allowed to talk about the liquids for the rest of season two of Quest’s End. So it’s a little problematic, but all to say, all that to say is like, look, we launched this company two years ago. You know, we have a little bit of a hope and dream sort of like, what if we did something like this?
The reality is that it’s been an unbelievable success and we’re off and running. so the reality is as long as, you know, our current administration doesn’t prohibit the import/export of all the things needed to create things that we love, we’re going to continue to grow. You know, it’d be nice if our community in the world felt as comfortable about their buying powers as we do about making stuff.
Me: Do you have any other projects coming up that you’d like to talk about?
Matthew: Yeah, I mean, I mean, you know Life of Chuck, the Mike Flanagan movie that comes out in June. I’m in Cross next year. I’m in Daredevil like we talked about Five Nights at Freddy’s, Scream 7. I’m doing another project with Flanagan in the Fall. So my day job has been crazy.
But you know, all that said, I’m more excited about what we’re building at Find Familiar Spirits. I mean, it’s been fun being COO, co-CEO, co-owner of this company. mean, the rigor of building it day in and day out, sort of having something to go to work for every day has been really exciting. Like I said, we have lots going on. We have Fam Club that we just built, which is an opportunity for our community to connect, an opportunity to give back a discount opportunity for people that are purchasing our goods. It’s also a chance for us to open up the doors to some stuff like virtual tasting with leadership, creating in-world events. Like at Gen Con, we’re hosting a party. We’re selling back stock to people that isn’t available anywhere else. Discord so people can engage. So lots of cool things happening to build community, not just sell products.
Me: (joking) So when are we going to see a sequel of Wing Commander?
Matthew: That is not in the works. There’s a lot of things that are in the works. That is not one of them.
Well, dude, thank you so much, Paul. Appreciate it.
Me: Yeah, no, thank you Matthew. Always a pleasure speaking with you.
Quest’s End: Druid is currently available to preorder from the Find Familiar Spirits website or from partner supplier Seelbach’s. You can get a discount off both Druid as well as future purchases by joining Find Familiar Spirits’ Fam Club, which has other benefits including members-only virtual tastings and invites to live events.
For more about Quest’s End, here is my original interview with Matthew Lillard, Tyler Jacobson, and Kate Welch.
My review of Quest’s End’s second release, Rogue, can be found here.
For more about Macabre Spirits, you can read my interview with Matthew Lillard here.
Fonte: GeekDad - Leia mais