Briggs Distilling Co. Opens in Driftwood, Texas — A Family Operation Bets Big on Hill Country Whiskey
There is a particular kind of ambition involved in opening a distillery on land your family has occupied for generations. It is not the calculated ambition of venture-backed beverage brands chasing trend lines, nor the risk-tolerant bravado of a first-time entrepreneur. It is something more deliberate — a wager placed with roots already deep in the soil. That is exactly the kind of operation that has just opened in Driftwood, a small Central Texas community tucked into the Hill Country southwest of Austin, where Briggs Distilling Co. poured its first whiskey flights on October 17, 2026.
A new family-owned distillery has joined the vast landscape of breweries, wineries, and other spirit-makers in the Texas Hill Country. But what separates Briggs from the wave of craft producers that have proliferated across the state is a combination of personal history, a specific vision for hospitality, and a lineup of three whiskeys built around one of the most distinctive production choices in modern American distilling: local rainwater.
The Briggs Family and the Land Beneath the Barrels
Every distillery tells an origin story, but not every origin story is grounded in literal geography. “Briggs Distilling was born from family and built for families,” Vice President of Marketing Bailey Briggs said in a news release. “The distillery stands on family land, just steps from where generations of our relatives have lived and gathered. For more than twenty years, our family has called the Texas Hill Country home, spending holidays, birthdays and long summer days on the river together.”
The 9,000-square-foot distillery is owned and operated by the Briggs family. It was founded by R.S. Briggs with longtime family friend Davis Tucker serving as its president. Master distiller Colton Weinstein is in charge of production and distilling operations. That triangle of leadership — a founding patriarch, a trusted business partner, and a technically trained distiller at the helm of production — is not an accident. It reflects a deliberate effort to balance family legacy with professional craft…