The Always Sunny Gang Gets Into the Whiskey Business With Spots Reminiscent of 1970s Beer Ads

Three-fifths of the gang on Always Sunny in Philadelphia is getting into the liquor business. But lest you think this is yet another celebrity spirits brand, Four Walls Irish American Whiskey is less about the celebrity and more about the places and the people you enjoy the beverage with.

Four Walls, the Irish-American whiskey brand founded by Glenn Howerton, Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day, is headed for bars everywhere and is now available to order online. The name is a tribute to the four walls the gang calls home—the bar—and was initially sold as a limited edition release, raising money for the bartending community.

“We wanted to create a brand celebrating the four walls that have held our good times in and kept our troubles out,” said Howerton in describing the initial inspiration for the elixir. 

Following the success of the limited drop, the three and their team of marketers, ex-agency folks and production people, began exploring ways to make a new version of Irish American whiskey, which they envisioned would become a go-to in the type of bars and spaces they cherish, where friends could raise a glass together and not be concerned about whatever is happening outside of that moment. 

To break away from the usual celebrity spirit brand, founder and co-CEO of Four Walls Whiskey Casey McGrath said that the idea was to build a fully formed brand that could immediately have value and stand for something that is aligned with the celebrity.

“Four Walls is as much about places and people as it is about the three guys. It’s about bars of bartenders,” McGrath told Adweek. “It is probably the least reliant on the back of the celebrities, because it is fully formed from day one with what the brand stands for.”

McGrath is a production and advertising veteran, having created many campaigns that pair musicians with products, including Jameson’s “Love Thy Neighborhood” platform and “Meet Me at the Bar” campaign in partnership with Anderson. Paak, plus campaigns for Jägermeister, Martell Cognac and Avión Tequila. He also has a deep music background, having been creative director for rock band Kings of Leon.

He dove into the whiskey business with Howerton, Day and McElhenney and a team dedicated to making the brand work and appeal to those who would work with it daily—the bartenders.

“While [the bar] is a safe place, it’s also a place that you’re exposed to new ideas. And that bartender is crucial because a conversation between two friends over drinks is very different with two friends at a bar with a bartender involved,” said McGrath.

It started as a beer

Howerton told Adweek he was looking to get into the liquor space because it seemed like a natural extension of the personas he, McElhenney and Day played on television. But they wanted it to be different from what other celebrities were doing, putting out high-end tequilas and vodkas.

“Our thought was, it felt more on brand for us to do something like a beer, like a light beer kind of thing or like a lager or Pilsner…and not that have a super high price point,” said Howerton.

After talking about it with the team, they learned about an emerging category of Irish-American whiskey and decided that would be the right direction to take since they’re all Irish Americans, they grew up in Irish-American pubs in New York City and Philadelphia, and on Always Sunny they run an Irish-American pub and play Irish-American bartenders.

Howerton said that he is a whiskey fan but was worried about getting something at an approachable price point.

“My biggest fear was we weren’t going to be able to come up with a blend that I thought was good enough and still hit the price point that we wanted to hit,” said Howerton.

After much trial and error and a lot of tasting, they came up with a blend of Irish whiskey with American rye at a price of roughly $35 that could be both enjoyed on the rocks or mixed in cocktails.

“After our higher-end releases, it was important for us to make a whiskey priced that all of our fans could try and that bartenders would want to use in everyday drinks,” said Day in a statement.

A retro-modern campaign

The name celebrates bars and bartenders, so McGrath said that the marketing campaign needed to also celebrate the rich stories about how those places and people have shaped culture.

“Myself and everybody on the team really believe that the love affair that we have with the bar and the role that it plays in our lives maybe has slipped a little bit. And we want to really do the work to bring that back,” said McGrath.

The “Come on in!” campaign features the three stars, but it isn’t just about them. Numerous videos were shot at Molly Malone’s in Los Angeles, and McGrath called in favors from all the people he has worked with over the years to bring about the right aesthetic, one that recalled the great beer ads of the ’70s and ’80s.

McGrath brought in a director of photography to capture the tone and energy of that era, and he wrote the scripts to bring the brand to life. The result is a series of spots, static ads and OOH that let the whiskey speak for itself while using the star power of its founders to give a marketing kick.

“We’ve built up a certain amount of goodwill with our audience on It’s Always Sunny … It’s a crowded marketplace, so I think a lot of people will probably initially buy this because we’re involved, and they just want to try it. But if it’s not good, they won’t buy it again,” said Howerton, adding that the whiskey should stand on its own. “There should be lots of people drinking this even five years from now that don’t even know we were ever involved. That’s my vision for this brand.”

Just as the limited release donated proceeds to the bartending community, fans can shop the new Four Walls merchandise shop, where 100% of the proceeds of select items will benefit Tales of the Cocktail Foundation, a non-profit that works to educate, advance and support the global cocktail community.

“The whole feel of the brand should be that it’s your everyday drinking whiskey, it’s not that top shelf thing that you only reach for on occasion. Our whole goal for this was to see more empty bottles down behind the bar than full bottles on the shelf,” said Howerton.