Quest’s End continues to bring together fantasy and high-quality spirits for fans, but this time they are partnering with Critical Role to bring a piece of Exandria to life. Their new whiskey, Sandkheg’s Hide, is pulled directly from Vox Machina’s adventures featured in episode 65 of Campaign 1. Quest’s End took inspiration directly from Matthew Mercer’s detailed description of the bottle. When crafting the whiskey, master blender Ale Ochoa looked to desert tones to bring the flavors of Marquet to life describing it as, “an intriguing whiskey with base notes of baked apple, brown spice, shortbread cookie, and oak. This 4+ year aged whiskey blend is cask-finished to bring out herbaceous notes, dried red fruit, and a hint of smoke.”
Critical Role has been finding ways to expand its story for fans whether through animation, comics, novels, or music. However, they have also begun finding ways to bring the world of Exandria off the screen into the real world for fans to experience with their cookbook, fashion lines, and now Sandkheg’s Hide whiskey. Quest’s End is the perfect company to bring this spirit to life with not only a bottle that fans will be thrilled to collect but a “found journal” written by the first person to drink Sandkheg’s bile. The Sandkheg’s Hide journal was written by Jasmine Bhullar with artist Tyler Walpole and cartographer Deven Rue bringing their voices to the project as well.
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Screen Rant interviewed Matthew Lillard following the announcement of Critical Role’s partnership with Quest’s End. He discussed the partnership with Critical Role and revealed that the cast will be making the final decision on which of the four whiskeys will be Sandkheg’s Hide. Lillard also shared details about Sandkheg’s Hide’s flavor profile, the exquisite bottle, and the found journal explaining how Critters will be able to keep a piece of Exandria on their shelf at home.
Matthew Lillard On Teaming Up With Critical Role: “We Want To Be In Their World”
Lillard explained how the partnership between Quest’s End and Critical Role came to be, calling it “a no-brainer” for Find Familiar Spirits. He also shed light on why Sandkheg’s Hide is the perfect whiskey to pull straight from Exandria and the process of putting together the team to make it a reality.
Matthew Lillard: First and foremost, we adore and respect the Critical Role world. They are obviously the paramount of the streaming world in terms of our community. The people they are and what they represent in this community in terms of inclusion, acceptance, love, storytelling, they’re just the best of the best. So, being affiliated with that as people is great. We want to be in their world. We want to be in their graces. Who else would you want to partner with? So, that was sort of a no-brainer.
When we launched Quest’s End, I was sitting with Jason Kletzky, their licensing manager. At the end of this meeting, we were literally having lunch, we’re buddies. He is like, “Hey, would you guys ever consider working with Critical Role?” I was like, “What are you talking about? Of course, yes. Who wouldn’t want that?” And so, we started to have a conversation. They asked us to send over a couple of suggestions. I worked with a buddy at Beadle & Grimm’s named Chris Daly, who’s a Critter through and through.
I said, “Hey, just out of curiosity, if you were doing something with Critical Role and wanted to create sort of an in-world whiskey, what would you think? Any ideas come to mind?” He puts together a ten-page dossier on all of the options, and we sort of circled the idea of Sandkheg’s Hide. It’s campaign one, episode 65. It’s a very funny moment in the show. The way that Mercer described the bottle and the reaction that all the players had of drinking it was the storytelling that we wanted to get behind, and felt like there was a lot to hold onto to build around.
Then we pitched that idea. We brought in Jasmine Bhullar, who we love dearly, was on Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! and is a friend of ours. We asked for a list of writers, she was one of the top, and so, we brought her in. Tyler Walpole is an incredible artist, and Tyler Jacobson recommended him. And then Deven Rue, we’ve worked with in the past with Beadle and Grimm’s. We put together this great combination of critter-forward artists to tell the story around it.
We went off and built the bottle. Ale Ochoa, who’s our master blender, we played her the clip and explained Critical Role. Then she threw her witchcraft and alchemy, transcribed the things that she heard on the show into actual liquid. The whole process has been nothing but a dream. They’ve been great partners all the way through.
Critical Role Have “Just Been Incredible Partners”
While Mercer and the rest of the Critical Role cast have created this expansive lore and world, they are happy to share it not just with an audience, but with other creatives as well. This is evident from the comics, novels, and animated series, as well as the EXU stories led by Brennan Lee Mulligan and Aabria Iyengar. This extends to Quest’s End as well. Lillard explained why their partnership with Critical Role has been such a wonderful experience.
Matthew Lillard: Their willingness to say yes. Their ability in empowering our creatives. They’ve just been incredible partners all the way through in terms of loving what we’re doing, empowering us to do more, to go further, and really being just exactly what you would expect that team to be. Which is loving, encouraging, and passionate about what we’re doing.
I thought that we would have a harder time cracking the code. Sometimes when you’re tiptoeing on people’s lore, when you’re tiptoeing in the world. Matt Mercer’s spinning these webs of these incredible tales, and you want to do your best to not only not make mistakes, but to celebrate it. You want to add value to the lore. And all the way through, I was like, “Are we doing enough? Is this not too much? Where are we at?” The whole way through, they’ve been really fantastic with just empowering us to keep going.
The Critical Role Cast Is Going To Pick The Whiskey
Lillard also broke down the flavor profile of Sandkheg’s Hide and explained how Ochoa created the whiskey. Keyleth and Percy were famously instantly intoxicated by Sandkheg’s Hide unable to speak. However, Lillard assured that won’t happen with the Quest’s End version, “No, I don’t think it will do that. But it is definitely our answer for that knockout, which is a higher proof than normal.” He also revealed how the cast will be instrumental in deciding what Sandkheg’s Hide will taste like.
Matthew Lillard: Ale, she’s our master blender. She just took a huge job at Jefferson, which is a big whiskey distillery. Honestly, I do think that when we started talking to her about Paladin, she doesn’t play RPGs. We started talking to her about Paladin and this character. We started about Uve, our snow elf. She takes these stories, you see her start scribbling notes, and she’ll ask a couple of questions.
Then she scribbles some notes and thinks about it for a second. And she’s like, “This is what I’m seeing.” She’ll lay out this tapestry of flavors. Then she goes out and finds blends. For this particular product, she wanted do some cask aging. So we take some vermouth barrels, we take some sherry barrels. The vermouth is to imbue this earthy herbaceous tones that you would find in the desert.
The sherry is a deep red fruit that, again, they give a sort of hearkening on these desert tones. The thing about Sandkheg’s is it tastes terrible [in the show], but your tongue goes numb, your face goes numb. So it’s a pretty high proof. So we proof it up. It’s got some spice to it, but then there’s a shortbread, there’s some sweetness to it. But that’s her. I mean, she’s this alchemist.
We are showing the [Critical Role] cast and the creative team four different samples. So we’re going over to the studios. We’re all sitting down. Ale is flying in from Kentucky, and she’s bringing a mix of four different samples. We’re going to sit around, we’re going to taste them, and the cast is actually going to pick the one they like the best. Whatever they pick, we’re going to go out and blend.
The Sandkheg’s Hide Bottle & The Journal Brings Exandria Lore To Life
Quest’s End has set itself apart not just because of the whiskey’s quality, but because of the experience provided. The bottles are collector’s items and have an ongoing story with each release. Sandkheg’s Hide is no different with a bottle pulled straight from Mercer’s mind and a story expanding the lore of Exandria. Lillard broke down the process of Bhular writing the found journal and revealed the one detail they steered away from when making the bottle.
Matthew Lillard: With Jasmine, what we did was we asked her to come up with a couple of hooks. Both Justin and I, as leaders of the company, are from the creative industries, and so, for us, we believe that the best result is empowering people to be creative, to do what they do best. So we said to Jasmine, “Hey, what stories are you thinking about telling? What excites you about this world? What excites you about the product?”
She pitched four different hooks. We all agreed on one that was our favorite, then we took those hooks, and we submitted to the team over at Critical Role. They’ve been incredible partners all the way through. They’ve sort of been like, “Yes, you’re doing great. Yes, do more of that. Yes, this is awesome. You’re on the right track, yes.”
And so, I will say that throughout the whole process. We’ve gotten very few notes, very few push backs on the process. But Jasmine did a story arc. We submitted that. Then she did a first pass of the story. Then we did a lore pass to make sure that the lore was on point. We wanted to make sure that we’re really representing the story, the community, and the things that Critters love. We want to put into the adventure. The book is 44 pages long.
It’s a found journal. It’s the first person to ever explore what happens if you drink sandkheg’s bile. That’s all I’ll say, but it is super fun. I think it’s sort of magical. We’re really thrilled with the outcome of our creative team. Tyler’s art is amazing. Deven came in as a cartographer, obviously worked. All three of them have worked a lot with Critical Role, and all three of them brought their A-game to the project.
The great thing is we have this incredible description from Mercer in the moment. I think the one thing we didn’t do is there’s a chitin that was wrapped around the bottle, but our nod to the chitin is our burlap. Chitin is sort of residue of bugs. So, we didn’t really want to get that far into it. Instead, we did the burlap bag as our symbolic nod.
Our glass comes from this incredible company in Italy. Each bottle has imperfections and chips in the glass, so it feels very in-world for us. We wanted the whole experience to feel in-world all the way down to the shipping box that comes in. We want the celebration of that piece to start when it lands on your doorstep. So, the box is in-world, the bottle is beautiful, wax dipped. The label is very bespoke. We worked with an incredible design team out of Florida called Shepherd, and so they really helped guide us through the creative process.
The whole thing, it has been about eight months putting it together from the deal points to the liquid, to sourcing bottles, to bringing in the maker’s mark, but I feel like it’s all lining up. It’s like all these pieces coming together, falling all at once, that combine into this one experience. Lots of moving parts, but right now everything’s going great.
Matthew Lillard Hopes “There’ll Be An Appetite On Both Sides To Do More”
Sandkheg’s Hide is directly tied to Vox Machina’s adventures. Lillard also loved the idea of Critters creating a signature cocktail using Sandkheg’s Hide for Legend of Vox Machina season 3, “That’d be good. I’m into that.” There is a lot more of Exandria that could be explored, which could mean more spirits down the line. When asked about potentially crafting spirits inspired by Campaign 2 and Campaign 3, Lillard wasn’t sure but seemed hopeful for the future.
Matthew Lillard: I don’t know. I think the reality is that in a situation like this where we’re five hours in [on the day of the announcement], we’ve had incredible, glowing response from the community so far. Our hope is that as we get through this process we launched, people are happy, the result’s great, and that there’ll be an appetite on both sides to do more. What that is, I’m not sure, but we hope that the team at Critical Role is proud of what we made and that the Critters enjoy the experience. So, hopefully, in success, there’ll be more to come, but nothing yet.
“We Want This To Be A Celebratory Moment For Critters”
Lillard explained the core idea of Find Familiar Spirits as an experience for genre fans to celebrate what they love through spirits, collectibles, and stories. He compared it to receiving new dice and hopes this will be something that Critters can experience and share as a celebration of their passion. Lillard also teased a new Find Familiar Spirits experience coming in the fall. This will be their first spirit outside the fantasy genre and, instead of whiskey, it will be a high-end premium tequila.
Matthew Lillard: We are never going to be the biggest whiskey company in the world. We’re not competing with Bulleit or Jack Daniel. We want to be the best in this niche community. The millions of people that play Dungeons & Dragons RPG games. We want to build something that celebrates them and celebrates what they love. Anyone can open a bottle of whiskey and drink it.
We want you to open the bottle of whiskey, drink it, and then allow us to write a love letter to your passion. That’s what we do. The great thing about Find Familiar Spirits, in my opinion, the thing that excites me about being one of it’s co-leaders is that we have multiple brands, multiple verticals coming up. We’re doing something in the fall that we’re very excited about. It’s based around a tequila, so we’re doing blue agave, tequila, really high-end premium tequila. But within that, there’s a community that we are going to build a bespoke experience for that has nothing to do with the RPG community.
So we’re going to continue to reach, and help to build these [experiences]. My hope is that when you receive this, and you open it, it just makes you happy. It’s like getting a new set of dice. You have plenty of dice, but every time you get set a dice that is for an adventure, or you’re about to use, that gives you the sense of, “Oh my God, these are my dice.” We want to be that for your liquor cabinet. We want this to be a celebratory moment for Critters and anyone who loves Quest End. That’s our goal. Our goal is to bring value to your whole experience.
