Walton Goggins’ Mulholland Distilling is a cinematic ode to Los Angeles. Its signature whiskey, crafted with grit and glamour, mirrors the actor’s layered performances on-screen.
Rick Hatchett doesn’t say much when he drinks. In The White Lotus Season 3, as the sky over Thailand softens to bruised pink and secrets spill like Campari, Walton Goggins’ character leans into the low hum of Bangkok, nursing a whiskey as he contemplates the life-changing decisions that lay ahead. It’s easy to imagine what’s in his glass — something complex, unpolished in the right places, and distinctly American. Something like the whiskey Goggins makes himself.
Off-screen, Goggins is more than an Emmy-nominated actor with a penchant for Southern Gothic swagger. He is also one-half of the duo behind Mulholland Distilling, a Los Angeles-based spirits label that — like the characters he plays — avoids easy categorization. Founded with cinematographer Matthew Alper, the brand has built a following not just for its crisp vodka or herbaceous gin, but for its American whiskey: a 100-proof, corn-heavy pour that refuses to fade into the background.
“It’s telling the story of our love for Los Angeles,” Goggins says in a video for Variety. For Mulholland, that meant crafting something that spoke to grit as much as glamour. The whiskey, distilled in Indiana, aged in Kentucky, and finished in Downey, California, is anchored by a mash bill of 94 percent corn, with rye and malted barley filling out the structure. It’s sweet but not cloying, with an edge that cuts through the nostalgia.
The taste is unmistakably bold — vanilla and maple up front, rounded by oak and a subtle finish of spice. It’s the kind of whiskey that plays well in a cocktail but also stands confidently alone. Bartenders from Silver Lake to the Sunset Strip have used it as a backbone for reinventions of old fashioneds and highballs, while Goggins himself has said he prefers it neat, especially when in conversation with friends or winding down after a long shoot.
In many ways, the spirit is a character study. It’s layered, unpredictable, and brimming with contradictions — sweet and spicy, smooth yet robust. Much like Goggins, who oscillates between roles with disarming ease, Mulholland’s whiskey defies a single reading. Flavor-wise, it has been described as “a Tarantino film,” by Thrillist. “There’s so much going on all at once: dried fruit, butterscotch candy, hay and sweet corn.”
The brand is not attempting to mimic the established greats from Kentucky or Tennessee. Instead, Mulholland leans into its California roots. The simplistic, understated label is more Coachella than country club. The distillery’s private lounge in the Arts District — The Mulholland Room — is equally cinematic: Persian rugs, sculptural lighting, a bar lined with vintage Thonet stools. It’s the sort of place where you might spot a director storyboarding a pitch or a poet scribbling lines onto a cocktail napkin. That intentional curation, equal parts speakeasy and salon, is at the heart of what Goggins and Alper are building.
Goggins likens himself a storyteller more than an actor, and there’s an element of storytelling in Mulholland. It’s a line that might sound lofty if it weren’t so plainly true. The whiskey, like the people behind it, is designed for moments of reflection, for dialogue, for scenes both real and imagined.
When Goggins steps into a role like Rick Hatchett — a man who seems to have built a life on secrets and second chances — the whiskey in his hand becomes more than a prop. It’s a subtle tether to his world off-camera. The two blend seamlessly: the performer and the distiller, each crafting something memorable, layered, and worth sipping slowly.
Mulholland’s rise has also coincided with a broader cultural shift around what defines American whiskey. For decades, the category has been dominated by heritage brands and traditionalists, most hailing from the South. But a wave of younger distillers — particularly on the West Coast — is rewriting the rules. California ranks as one of the fastest-growing regions for innovation and experimentation in the category, with more than 245 craft distillers.
Mulholland is not alone in this renaissance. San Francisco’s St. George Spirits, Sonoma’s Spirit Works, Paso Robles’ Calwise, and fellow LA distillery Greenbar are all pushing boundaries with terroir-driven mash bills and nontraditional barrel aging. But what sets Mulholland apart is its cinematic sensibility — less farm-to-bottle, more film-to-bottle. It’s whiskey written in script form.
For those watching Goggins’ characters sip in silence on-screen, there’s an added pleasure in knowing the spirit might not be entirely fictional. Whether it’s Rick Hatchett brooding over a past he can’t rewrite or Goggins himself decompressing after a shoot, the drink in hand holds weight. It signals a pause, an intention, a line not yet delivered, just the whiskey, the story, and the city that shaped them both.
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