Desert Door Distillery sits on 22 acres of Texas Hill Country in Driftwood, about 20 minutes southwest of Austin. Founded in 2017 by Judson Kauffman, Ryan Campbell, and Brent Looby, this operation centers entirely around sotol—a spirit distilled from the Desert Spoon plant that grows wild across West Texas, New Mexico, and northern Mexico. The trio opened their doors in a custom-built facility designed specifically for sotol production, making them the first commercial sotol distillery in Texas and one of only a handful in the United States. Kauffman, Campbell, and Looby didn’t stumble into this accidentally. They spent years researching sotol production methods, traveling to Mexico to learn from traditional producers, and figuring out sustainable harvesting practices for the Desert Spoon plants they source from far West Texas ranches. The challenge wasn’t just learning to make sotol—it was convincing Texas legislators to create a legal framework for this spirit category, since sotol didn’t fit existing definitions for whiskey, vodka, or other established categories. Their lobbying efforts led to Texas becoming the first U.S. state to legally recognize sotol as its own spirit category. The 8,000-square-foot production facility houses custom copper pot stills designed specifically for sotol production, along with a tasting room that looks out over the Hill Country. You’ll taste sotol here—not bourbon, not whiskey, but something entirely different that tastes like the Texas desert concentrated into liquid form. The spirit has an earthy, vegetal character with notes that range from pepper to honey depending on the expression, and it’s probably unlike anything you’ve tried before.