MARFA, Texas — What was once a warehouse used in World War I is now home to one bar and distillery that helps put Marfa on the map.
The Marfa Spirit Company serves alcohol unique to the region in a historic building ready to give visitors quite the experience.
“It is extremely magical," said Laura McShan, Bar and Event Manager at The Marfa Spirit Company.
That magic is created by unique booze that does more than excite your taste buds.
While McShan oversees the bar and events, she is also a sotol fanatic.
“I think there’s something really like, mystical about sotol, just the potency and the rawness of it, it’s just really, really unique," McShan said. "Like it feels very, earthy and natural and just special.”
The Marfa Spirit Company doesn’t actually make sotol, it just completes the process. Their Chihuahuan Desert Sotol 80 and 90 proof comes all the way from Janos, Chihuahua in Mexico. The bar and distillery works with a sotolero named Jacobo Jacquez who harvests, roasts and ferments the sotol plant before transporting the "juice" to Marfa.
The Marfa Spirit Company then distills it, bottles it for distribution and serves it along with other unique options -- such as Chihuahuan Desert Rum, Gin and Vodka.
“We’ve worked hard to utilize a lot of local ingredients – coupled alongside these spurts – to have a really seasonal menu and have something that challenges our bartenders but also our guests, because we’re a tourist-heavy spot that you’re nothing without the people in the community," McShan said. "So, it’s important to us to have something fresh and awesome for everyone to enjoy and keep coming back into this space as well.”
The space includes army writings from a century ago and the logo of the former Godbold feed mill. Now the seats inside the tasting room will fill up like a drink, with that drink attracting a wide range of people.
“A lot of Austin, Dallas, I’ve had people as far as Vermont road-tripping down here, a lot of van lifers, a lot of airstream people and our demographic as far as travelers go is really broad," McShan said. "I see a lot of really cool interactions happening across the bar top between ranchers who’ve been here for decades with a tourist telling them a story that they would never have heard before.”
It’s those interactions, conversations and experiences that are all created by bottles of booze at a unique place.
“This is an army warehouse, it is so unique, and we’re selling drinks and liquors and making a product that is widely unique," McShan said. "It represents this area, here in Marfa you can only work with what you have. Nothing is easy, and if what you’re serving ends up being something that represents this region, how can you not be unique?”
The Marfa Spirit Company is certainly a cultural fit that brings people from all around -- truly showcasing how it is uniquely West Texas.
For more information about The Marfa Spirit Company, click here.