RAISING THE BAR
Houston distillery provides a lifeline for out-of-work bartenders.
Bryan Clary and Zack Hiller worked for three years to open their own distillery in North Houston. But when the coowners of William Price Distilling Co. landed their federal distilling permits on March 27, the industry’s needs had suddenly changed — the coronavirus closed down bars, their core market, and distilleries across the nation were pivoting to hand sanitizer production.
Within a week they, too, were making hand sanitizer, Clary said, employing dozens of outof-work bartenders at their Wakefield Drive facility until they could return to form. What started as one step to help the bar industry turned into more, as the pandemic and related shutdowns continued to heap troubles on bars and their staffs.
The plan is to start distilling spirits in December, Clary said. Meantime, throwing bars a lifeline serves mutual needs, he said, because the bartenders they knew were hard-hit, and “if there’s no bars, there’s no place for us to sell our spirits.”
“It was an immediate goal of ours to help them,” he said.
Producing hand sanitizer is simple enough, Clary said. To do it, the team mixes ethyl alcohol, water, hydrogen peroxide and glycerin. To give the mixture a more gel-like texture, they add cellulose. They also add scent combinations such as peach and jasmine, lavender-sandalwood and citrus.
Chemists are in charge of the mixing, Clary said, but there’s plenty else to do. Hospitality workers back up the chemists, help with bottling, packaging and in the office.
Lindsay Rae Burleson, longtime bartender and co-owner of Two Headed Dog, now works as a production manager at William Price. The pandemic sent her bar into a tailspin, she said, noting her business partner is now making trash compactors.
“My life was very different than it is now,” she said.
Burleson said she’s not sure when they’ll be able to open the bar again, which has been hard on her and the Two Headed Dog team. She furloughed everyone during the first shutdown, she said, and then brought them back and had to furlough them again when Gov. Greg Abbott called for another shutdown last month.
“Most of them have now found other opportunities,” she said, noting some are making hand sanitizer alongside her at William Price.
Clary and Hiller helped Burleson
in more ways than one. Clary said Two Headed Dog was one of the bars to receive funds from a foundation they are forming to give small grants to struggling bars. Grand Prize Bar also received $4,000 after its air conditioning system was stolen.
Burleson’s bar was also broken into twice since the pandemic hit, she said. And yes, she has insurance, “but my deductible is more than the damage they did.”
The distillery’s foundation has so far given out nearly $20,000 in funds to six bars, Clary said. It is also donating to-go kits, replete with bottles, labels, bags and zip ties for bars looking to experiment with newly legal cocktail to-go sales.
“If we save one bar, then that’s one bar more that wouldn’t be there,” he said.
Rachel Tate worked at several of Houston’s bars and venues for more than a decade before the pandemic shut them down. Now, she works as William Price’s office manager.
A bartender, Tate worked most often at Reserve 101, White Oak Music Hall and Warehouse Live. When they shut down, she said William Price offered work when finding a job felt daunting and unsafe, she said.
“Bartenders get used to a style of work and pay,” she said. “Having such an abrupt shift is definitely going to have an impact on anybody. But luckily William Price has helped us navigate it a lot better than I could have managed on my own.”