Final sip: Hollow Spirits Distillery closes pour room, opens for special and private events, continues to distill spirits

Hollow Spirits Distillery has closed its pour room.

The distillery will continue to create its line of spirits and will hold events that will be open to the public where people can purchase bottles of Hollow Spirits products. The venue also can be rented out for private events including birthdays, anniversaries, work-related functions and other celebrations. People interested in renting out Hollow Spirits for an event can visit hollowspirits.com.

“The past like two years, our day-to-day business at Hollow Spirits has been going slowly, (it is) less and less,” said Frank Holloway, CEO and owner of Hollow Spirits. “In order to kind of combat that, we’ve been throwing more and more events, and for events, we’re absolutely killing it. The day to day just kept on getting slower and slower. And then there was just kind of a point where we’re really losing money in the day to day, literally, just opening, getting a couple people in. We’re losing money because we can’t afford the staff and everything. And the only way we can make any money is when we throw events. It just got to a point where it’s like, well, since we’re doing amazing with events, and we’re doing bad with the day to day, why don’t we just 100% go into events?”

Hollow Spirits opened in 2018 and expanded its space by adding an upstairs patio. It also included a kitchen that was initially run by the distillery and later run by different local chefs who incorporated their own restaurant concepts in the space, including Whet 1324 and most recently Hollow Point Cuisine.

The public can visit the distillery’s website to locate retailers that sell Hollow Spirits products or wait for public events to make their purchases at the distillery.

“We’re going to do both private and public events,” Holloway said. “We’re going to have events, like, if you have a wedding, or you have a birthday party or a corporate event, we’re loving those events, we’ll completely close down for you guys, but we’re also doing some public events, like the bartending competition coming this month and we’re gonna have a salsa night, and anytime we have those people could come in and purchase.”

The bartending competition will be held on Sunday, Jan. 19. Doors open at 3:30 p.m. with the event starting at 4 p.m. There will be 16 bartenders competing. The event will be judged by people involved in the local bar industry.

“It’s going to be just like (the Food Network show) ‘Chopped’ where you basically pull a card right before you compete,” Holloway said. “I think it’s something like five minutes to think about it, and then you have like seven minutes to make four cocktails ... (Participants) get the same ingredients, as long as you beat the person right next to you then you move on to the next round. (It is) one elimination, so once you’re out, you’re out.”

Hollow Spirits will also host a salsa night starting at 7 p.m. on Feb. 1. It will release its new reposado agave spirit that night. There will be no cover and guests can purchase bottles of the newly released agave spirit as well as other Hollow Spirits products.

“I want to do bottle sale events for people to be able to come in and buy discounted bottles, and we’ll make a couple drinks and just have fun,” Holloway said. “I’m kind of at the point where I’m done owning a bar and restaurant, but I really want to throw parties and get back to having fun in this industry.”

For people unable to make the events, they can call Hollow Spirits during the day, if they are interested in purchasing distilled spirits, at 505-433-2766.

“We’re still distilling during the day so if you call us ahead of time, and we’re here, we’re more than down to sell a couple bottles,” Holloway said.