Matthew Lillard’s Find Familiar Spirits is teaming up with Critical Role to create Quest’s End: Sandkheg’s Hide, an in-world limited-edition super-premium whiskey with an all-new story set in the universe for fans. The presale will start on April 30 and last until May 1. Then, it will be on sale from May 2 to May 23.

Inspired by the description of the bottle in the episode, the exciting new bourbon comes in dark green glass with a distressed label, wax seal, and exclusive coin medallion around its neck, tucked inside a burlap bag. Designed to look like an in-world shipping crate, the whiskey’s unique box will also contain a “found” journal from the Exandrian maker of Sandkheg’s Hide that tells the story of this unique concoction.

I caught up with him to talk about this fun collaboration, taste-testing the different whiskeys, seeing the bottle come to life thanks to the talent creative team, which of his characters he would want to make a product tied to, and more. Keep reading for everything he shared!

Well, this collaboration is so cool. Talk to me about how it happened and what it was like to do. 
Matthew Lillard: Well, I was at lunch with Jason Kletzky, who runs the licensing for Critical Role, he’s a good buddy of mine and at the lunch, I was explaining sort of the success we had with Quest’s End. So Quest’s End launched with Paladin, and we sold out in two weeks. We put up a waiting list, we had 25,000 people on the waiting list in a week. It’s crazy. Then we launched Paladin +1, which was hugely successful, more successful than the first drop, and he was like, “You guys should do something. Would you ever be interested in doing something with Critical Role?” And I’m not a Critter, I’m not a kid that watches streaming shows, but I am a huge fan of those people and how they run their business, their inclusivity and their love for the community, and how they build and how authentic they are.

I mean, we, as Quest’s End, emulate them and aspire to be like them in this world. So when he said that, we jumped at the opportunity. We sat with them and they said, “Bring back an idea.” We are not a company that’s ever gonna slap a label on a thing and sort of capitalize on people’s passion, we want to add value, right? What does our value add to the community? So yeah, I went to a buddy of mine named Chris Daly, who is a Critter, and I’m like, “Hey, if you could build anything in the Critical Role world, what would it be?” He gave us a 10-page dossier of everything that’s ever been in box and we ended up going with Sandkheg’s because of the moment. The moment when Mercer pulls out sort of the bottle and explains it in character, and then, Grog’s response. I mean, all of it was sort of perfect and there was so much there that we could mine, that we did. We went out and found this glass in Italy that’s chipped and a little misshapen because he describes this green bottle and we’re dipping it in wax.

He talks about the fact that it’s a bile of a giant monster, so we sort of leave that to the side. But Ale Ochoa, who’s our master blender, basically took the description and did her alchemy, and created something that’s barrel-aged in vermouth and barrel-aged in sherry, and it’s delicious. Last Friday, we sat with the entire cast, Sam wasn’t there, but we flew Ale out from Kentucky, and she made ten different samples and brought her three favorite. We all sat around a table, and for an hour and a half basically tasted the three options and Ale walked us through this whole tasting process. It was really incredible, and that’s what we picked. There was bottle number three, bottle number five, and bottle number six, and we ended up picking number five. And so, that whole experience was super rewarding, and working with them has been nothing but a dream. They’ve been awesome.

I’m actually going to ask you to go off of that because I imagine the taste-testing process and going through those journeys with each bottle and different flavors must be so fascinating. Can you tell me a little bit about doing that and seeing the right one come to life and embody what you were making?
Listen, the reality was that, at that moment, we were sitting in service of the team, right? So Ale brought a simple one that was more palpable, like sort of entry-level, she brought one that had a lot more heat on it, and then brought one that ended up being a great combination of both. But for us, we sat and listened, right? We really wanted them to express themselves in this and so, for us, it was great to be there to provide them with — each one of them could have been delivered, there’s no wrong version here, right? 

The way they spoke about it, the way we all talked, how the flavor was exploring, you know, how the flavor kept increasing, we added water, what did that do to it? But the conversations were rich, right? Like, the amount of effort and the conversations about how it represented the moment best is why we chose this blend. All three of them are great whiskeys but we thought it was important that we chose the one that best represented the moment on the show.

I like what you said about not wanting to just slap a label on it and I imagine it’s rewarding for you when your partners feels the same way since you are so passionate. Do you look for that same quality when collaborating on stuff like this?
Listen, in success, we will do more stuff and hopefully, this does well. I think that the conversations that we’re already having around stuff to create, our juices are pumping, so hopefully, this does well. I mean, it is an interesting sale and I do say this, I always try to articulate this, because we move so quickly and because we do sort of limited drops a lot like a sneaker company, we are doing a three-week window sale. Once that window’s closed, the sales over and it goes away. So, you can go to SandkhegsHide.com and get signed up for the presale. The presale lasts 48 hours. We are shipping them sequentially on how people purchase and we are pre-building a certain amount of bottles, so if you’re in that first lot, you will get your bottle very early. If you’re in the second lot, third lot, or fourth lot, then you can expect to get it later, but it’s important to sort of say that out loud as we’re talking about this moment.

I was reading the description of what the bottle is going to look like, so what is your favorite part or element of how it came out? It seems like it is going to be incredible.
Oh, that’s good. It’s easy actually. So we went out and hired Jasmine Bhullar, Tyler Walpole, and Deven Rue to do the creative aspect. In the product, there’s a found journal, it’s awesome and the story is great. Jasmine wrote the story, Tyler did the art, and Deven did the cartography and did the map. So, to me, finding these three sort of Critter-approved Critical Role sort of icons, artistic icons, gathering them together, and because Justin and I come from the creative world — I mean, our whole team’s creative except for the two business people that run the company. We run the company, but there’s two people that anchor the company that are in the business world, the rest of us are creatives pretending to be business people.

But the creative team, we brought them together and sort of let them — they started their own Discord page, they, “yes, and” the entire creative process. Jasmine was writing, she submitted three hooks, and we gave that to Critical Role. Critical Role the entire time has been incredible partners. I mean, our big fear in this relationship was like, “What if Matt holds on to the lore? What if he like doesn’t allow us to play? What if they protect everything with fisticuffs?” But to their credit, they’ve been incredible partners. They’ve “yes, and,” us the entire time, we’ve done the exact same thing with our creative team, and so for us, I think my favorite part is working with these three incredible artists that just expanded everything. I think they’re going to make the Critter world very happy.

You have such iconic and beloved characters. If you could make a whiskey experience for one of them, who would you pick?
That is a new question. It’s so funny, what would that be? I think I drink, at some point, during Wing Commander, but I don’t think anyone ever saw Wing Commander. I mean, look, the idea of doing something fun around Shaggy, I think that there’s such an incredible history and tapestry with that iconic brand. To find a way to do something there would be fun and I think that people would sort of love it. I’ve never even thought of it before, but I wonder if that’s an IP we could chase down, and hunt down and get. Well, I will say that we’re really excited — so I have been saying this, our whole thing about Find Familiar Spirits is that this is our sort of launch vertical, this RPG brand Quest’s End but this October, we’re launching another, sort of our second flagship.

Yes, you teased that last time. I’m very excited.
Yeah, it’ll be a tequila and we hope to get on sale in October, which will be super fun. So that’s really what I’m excited about, I’m excited about that. I mean, look, I think that doing other people’s IP is a little challenging because you have to bring something to that community and I think that’s difficult, right? We’re never going to be the brand that just, like I said before, slaps on a label. So, I like the idea that we’re doing something that’s ours. I mean, that’s, to me, the most fun about all of this is building communities and building that IP for ourselves. 

Sandkheg’s Hide will be sold direct-to-consumer only through the Quest’s End website, their distributor Seelbach’s, and on the exclusive site for SandkhegsHide.com.