Let's be honest: the bourbon world is lousy with flowery adjectives and invented lore. You’re reading reviews that taste like “morning dew on a rare Hungarian oak barrel” or a “bad poem written in a dimly lit speakeasy.” It's enough to make you pour the bottle down the drain. And then, you have Few Spirits distillers. If you are researching new bourbons to try, you probably want to know if the people making it actually care about the liquid or if they just care about selling you a lifestyle. In the case of Few Spirits, the story is actually interesting enough that we don’t have to make things up. It involves Nazis, guitars, lawyers, and a necessary dose of historical sarcasm.
When people search for “Few Spirits distillers,” they are usually looking for a team of white-coated scientists or a grizzled old man named Pappy. Instead, they find Paul Hletko.
Paul isn’t a seventh-generation Kentucky colonel. He didn’t grow up rolling barrels down a hill in Bardstown. Before he started making some of the most interesting craft whiskey on the market, he was a patent attorney. Yes, a lawyer. I know, usually, when a lawyer walks into a bar, it’s the setup for a bad joke. In this case, the lawyer walked into a bar, didn’t like what he saw, and decided to build a distillery.
The distilling gene actually runs in his blood, even if it skipped a generation or two. His grandfather’s family owned a major brewery in the Czech Republic before World War II. You can probably guess how that story ends—the Nazis seized the property, and the family legacy was put on indefinite hold.
Paul spent years trying to get that brewery back for his family. When the legal red tape proved thicker than a barrel-proof rye, he realized he wasn’t going to reclaim the past. So, he decided to build a future, founding Few Spirits in 2011.
This history matters to your taste buds because Hletko approaches distilling with the precision of a lawyer and the creativity of a frustrated musician (he played in bands, too). He isn’t trying to replicate Kentucky bourbon. He’s trying to make something that stands on its own.
Here is where the Few Spirits distillers really lean into the sarcasm. If you were going to open a distillery, where would you put it? Near a fresh water source? Near a grain supply?
Paul decided to open his distillery in Evanston, Illinois.
For those of you who slept through history class, Evanston was the headquarters of the Temperance Movement. This is the place that literally birthed Prohibition. It was a dry city for decades after the federal ban on alcohol was lifted. The name “FEW” is actually the initials of Frances Elizabeth Willard, a key figure in the Temperance Movement who spent her life trying to ban the very substance Paul is now winning awards for making.
It takes a special kind of cheekiness to set up shop in the backyard of the people who tried to ban booze forever. The distillery itself isn’t in a rolling meadow; it’s tucked down a dark back alley in an old chop-shop. It’s gritty, it’s urban, and it’s about as far away from the “gentleman’s estate” vibe as you can get. This attitude bleeds into the bottle. They aren’t making polite spirits; they are making stuff that demands attention.
Let’s ignore the master distiller’s biography and talk about the grain he actually bought. That’s the real hero of the story. A lot of “craft” distilleries are really just bottling plants. They buy whiskey, water it down, and charge you $60 for the privilege. Few Spirits distillers do it the hard way: grain-to-glass.
This means Paul and his team control every single step. They mill the grain, they mash it, they ferment it, they distill it, and they bottle it. Why should you care? Because it means the flavor isn’t generic. When you buy bulk whiskey, it tastes like… well, bulk whiskey. When you make it yourself in small batches in a back alley in Chicago, it tastes like something.
Their approach is often described as “Chicago-style.” It’s bold. It’s spicy. Their bourbon uses a high-corn mash bill but introduces a northern rye spice that kicks you in the teeth a little bit—in a good way. They also play fast and loose with yeast strains, often using wine yeasts to introduce fruity, estery notes that you just don’t find in traditional Kentucky juice.
Is it for everyone? No. If you want a smooth, boring vanilla bomb that disappears in a Coke, go buy something mass-produced. If you want a spirit that tastes like it was made by a guy who used to argue with judges for a living, this is your jam.
If you’ve ever had to Google what “petrichor” means just to read a whiskey review, you know the problem. Stop treating your bourbon hobby like a graduate thesis. This post is your permission to skip the rest of the research and just pour a glass.
Here is the problem with guys like Paul Hletko making unique, complex spirits: your palate might not be ready for it. You might take a sip of their Rye and think, “Whoa, what is that floral note?” or “Why is this bourbon spicy?”
This is where OAKR comes in. It’s the best bourbon sommelier app on the market, and frankly, it does the work so you don’t have to guess.
OAKR aggregates tasting data from blind tasting panelists. It doesn’t care about the marketing story or the cool bottle design. It cares about flavor. It breaks down the nuances of spirits like Few so you can see exactly what you’re getting into before you drop your cash.
Maybe you love high-rye bourbons but hate floral finishes. Maybe you want a wheater that tastes like a cinnamon roll. OAKR helps you visualize these flavor profiles and gives you personalized recommendations. It’s like having a friend who knows everything about whiskey but isn’t annoying about it.
So, before you grab a bottle of Few based solely on my rant about Paul’s legal career, check it out on OAKR. See if the flavor profile matches what you actually enjoy drinking.
So, what makes Few Spirits unique? It’s the combination of a founder who refuses to do things the easy way and a location that serves as a giant middle finger to the history of Prohibition.
Paul Hletko and his team aren’t scientists in a lab; they are craftsmen in a chop-shop. They didn’t inherit a recipe; they built one from scratch because they wanted to drink something better. They are the pros of the craft world because they understand that whiskey is supposed to have character.
If you are tired of the same old caramel-and-vanilla profile and want to support a team that has legitimate personality, Few is worth a pour. Just remember to use OAKR to make sure you pick the right bottle for your palate, because “bold” can mean a lot of things, and you want to make sure it means “delicious” for you.
Login to OAKR for spirit profile flavor data, create your own lists and customize your palate to get custom somm recommendations on whiskey you’ll love.
