If you take a short walk southeast of Sundance Square and Bass Performance Hall in downtown Fort Worth, you'll find yourself in an area known as Hell's Half Acre-which, in the mid to late 19th Century was one of the most wild districts in any of the western frontier towns in American history. Legends like Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, and Etta Place were all known to have frequented the area, in what eventually became known as "the Acre" during the years leading up to Prohibition.
Acre Distilling owner Tony Formby didn’t know the history of the area when he stumbled upon the abandoned building behind the Fort Worth Convention Center. He was looking for a good place to set up shop with former Rahr & Sons brewers J.B. Flowers and Brad Berven, and what he found was a 100-year-old brick building with good bones and 1.5-inch grooved southern pine flooring in a historical neighborhood that was perfect for a craft distillery.
After a year of renovation work, the team moved in and got to work creating unique single-malt whiskeys, bourbon, gins, vodkas, and even limoncello, among other things. Today, after celebrating its ninth anniversary in December 2024, Acre Distilling is one of the most well-known craft distilleries in the business, and they’ve won multiple awards at both national and international spirits competitions since opening their doors in 2015.
When you walk into Acre Distilling, you’ll immediately how beautiful the space is: “The first half of the building is surrounded on two sides by what looks like French doors, but we use them as windows. They're made from Bolivian mahogany, they’re gorgeous, and they go all the way around, so you’re about a foot and a half up above the bar tasting room, looking down on the production area, which is gleaming stainless steel and copper,” explains Formby.
The second thing you’ll notice is the impressive in-house business. Since Acre doesn’t garner a ton of foot traffic and you’ll be hard-pressed to find their products in your local Spec’s or Total Wine, it’s all about the regulars, the tours, the whiskey blending sessions, the new Saturday night cocktail classes, and the spirit aficionados, all of which contribute to a bustling business that continues to grow over the years.
“We are becoming a little bit of the tourism engine in the state. We have a lot of tourists visiting distilleries, wineries, all that kind of stuff, and over time, we're getting a little stronger. One of the things that we started eight or nine years ago was using Texas grains in our whiskeys. There’s a malt house in Fort Worth, we were one of their very first customers. They went up to the panhandle into the Canadian River District, and they got farmers to start growing high-quality barley, wheat, rye, and corn, and we started using that in our whiskeys,” says Formby.
That investment in Texas-grown supplies has paid off for Acre Distilling. Some of their most popular spirits include the Longhair Jim Straight Bourbon Whiskey, the Cinamon Girl Whiskey, Miss Addie’s Blackberry Sage Tea Vodka, and the Two Minnies London Dry Gin. The gin especially, is known in the community for being a superior spirit. “Our gin really is a flagship. It won the double gold medal at the World Spirits Competition. It won silver in London. It won silver again at the World's one year, and gold at the US Open spirits Championships. We have a pretty unique old-fashioned way of making it naturally and using the best botanicals from all over the world,” says Fromby.
Besides the impressive in-house spirits, Acre Distilling has recently started offering Texas wines, and while there is not a full kitchen, menu items include pizza, pretzels, cheese boards, and a full coffee bar for those coming in a bit too early for a beverage.
The team at Acre realizes what they’ve got. With the new Texas A&M buildings going in, hotels being built, and downtown Fort Worth experiencing a Renaissance era, Tony is expecting the buzz around the distillery will only grow. “Five years from now, the neighborhood that we're in will be way different, and in fact, it'll be very good for us.”