Our History
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Beginnings
Our history of Pinkerton’s Distillery was conceived in 2014 while Lucas was finishing his last year at Texas Tech University. Upon graduating, he poured all his focus into getting his business up and running, along with building Betsy (His Beloved Pot Still) from the ground up, topping her off with a beautiful glass column inlaid with copper plates.
In mid-2015, the final recipe for Pinkerton’s Distillery Platinum Rum was chosen from 3 finalists and production was well under way. Once the location for the distillery was finalized in Lubbock, TX, with a stamp of approval from Mrs. Pinkerton, of course, production went into full bloom. December saw our first open house.
2016-17
In 2016, Pinkerton’s Distillery was picked up from Ranger Beverage. Ollie’s Liquor, in Lubbock, TX, was the first store to put the rum on their shelves. We worked hard with Ranger Beverage to get placements in the Panhandle of Texas, getting from Amarillo to Abilene to Midland/Odessa. In late 2016, we partnered with ATX Wholesale Liquor to get The Platinum Rum in the major cities across Texas. It was at this time we started playing with flavored rum, focusing on a coconut flavor as well as oaking our Platinum Rum. By the end of the year, we had our recipes.
In early 2017 Pinkerton’s Distillery Coconut Rum was approved and went into production. The Coconut Rum has been very successful, quickly spreading into the Texas panhandle. Pinkerton’s Distillery Gold Rum hit shelves shortly after, picking up a loyal following of its own.
2018-19
In 2018, we partnered up with Great Plains Distributors, widening our network of package stores. Also during this year, we met the crew that is now The Burn Vodka. They were searching for a distillery that would help them produce their dream of using a blend of fresh peppers to add to their Vodka, rather than an artificial flavor, and we were more than thrilled to become a part of their story.
In 2019, Betsy got an upgrade in order to produce vodka. Similar to the tale of Pinkerton’s rum, several recipes were created and tested, alone and with the Burn Concentrate, until one stood out among the rest and became Pinkerton’s Distillery Premium Vodka and the base for the Burn Vodka (a harmonious blend of Pinkerton’s Vodka and The Burn Concentrate). These products hit the market in the later part of 2019 and have been keeping the distillery in a constant rate of motion every since.
2020
2020 needs no explanation! We geared up to start a heavy marketing campaign for our products but decided, in conjunction with the Burn Vodka group, that we needed to help our community any way we could.
With the government’s decision to allow distilleries to produce hand sanitizer, we switched our focus to do just that, donating what we could to First Responders, Hospitals, and Senior Assisted Living Centers, and selling enough elsewhere to keep up production.
Along with rum and vodka, we continue to make hand sanitizer and donate it out, and we want to say thank you to all that have donated supplies and capital to make it possible to get sanitizer to those places and people in need. We also want to thank the businesses and the community that have purchased sanitizer from us. Your purchases have allowed us to make and donate more sanitizer to help keep people safe.