Craig Amick
In the rolling countryside near Lake Murray, South Carolina, where generations of families have measured time not only by years but also by their stewardship of land and community, Hollow Creek Distillery emerged as both a business and a continuation of family identity. At the center of that story stands Craig Amick, a ninth-generation South Carolinian whose work in distilling became inseparable from his commitment to local heritage, family, and service.
Craig Amick’s family roots in South Carolina stretch back to the colonial era. The Amick family traces its ancestry to Conrad Emig, later Americanized to “Amick,” who emigrated from Germany in 1752 and received a land grant from King George II for acreage that today lies beneath the waters of Lake Murray. The family remained in the region generation after generation, building a reputation for hard work, farming, transportation, and local service. Amick has described himself as the ninth generation of that family line, while his son represents the tenth. In interviews, he has spoken with obvious pride about how little the family ever strayed geographically, joking that “we don’t get out much,” a remark that underscored the continuity of place that shaped his outlook.
That deep connection to family history is reflected in Hollow Creek’s products. The distillery’s High Cotton Straight Bourbon Whiskey and William Alan Straight Bourbon Whiskey both contain references to the Amick family’s South Carolina roots. High Cotton Bourbon displays a Boykin Spaniel, South Carolina’s state dog, on its label, while every bottle of bourbon bears the initials “H.E.” stamped on the top seal. Those initials served as the mark of Henry Emig, Craig’s eighth-great-grandfather, who fought as a Patriot during the American Revolution.
The same sense of continuity also shaped Amick’s marriage and family life. Craig Amick and Meredith Stillwell were high school sweethearts who first met in grade school. Both later attended Clemson University, where they earned engineering degrees before returning to their home region to build careers and raise a family. Meredith, whose father served as a local pastor in the Gilbert community, shared Craig’s commitment to faith and local roots. The pair eventually married in their hometown area and settled permanently in the region where both of their extended families continue to live.
The relationship between Craig and Meredith Amick became one of the defining characteristics of Hollow Creek Distillery itself. Company literature repeatedly emphasizes that the distillery was founded on “Faith, Family, and Hard Work,” and the business openly presents itself as a husband-and-wife operation. Meredith has often been described as the practicalforce behind the enterprise, while Craig became the public face of the distilling side of the business. Their partnership appears throughout the public record not as a symbolic arrangement but as a genuine working collaboration involving production, expansion, branding, and community engagement.
The origins of the distillery can be traced to an unusual opportunity that emerged during the early years of legal micro-distilling in South Carolina. The idea for the business began when a family friend with what the Amicks later described as “more experience than the law allows” considered opening a legal distillery of his own. Although that individual ultimately abandoned the effort because of the regulatory burden, the concept remained. Craig, recently out of graduate business studies and newly married with an infantson at home, decided to pursue the opportunity himself.
Meredith later joked that Craig approached her with the idea while she was exhausted from caring for their six-month-old child and that she agreed simply because she wanted sleep. Behind the humor, however, was a serious commitment. The couple reportedly spent a year researching the business and another two years navigating licensing requirements and paperwork before finally opening their doors.
The son later born to the couple, Will Amick, has since become woven into the identity of the company itself. Hollow Creek Distillery openly describes him as the “future owner,” and several of the family’s bourbon labels reference both family history and the next generation. Their William Alan Bourbon, for example, honors family names from both sides while symbolically connecting earlier Amick generations to their son’s future. The family-centered nature of the business became a recurring theme in public interviews, marketing materials, and community profiles.
Determined to create a distillery that remained true to their roots, the Amicks purchased a little more than ten acres of land just three miles from where Craig grew up. The couple has explained that they wanted visitors to experience the peaceful feeling of country life moving at a slower pace. When Hollow Creek Distillery finally opened near Leesville in 2014, with Craig serving as Master Distiller, he could not have known that within only eight years the small operation would earn medals at major spirits competitions, including the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and the New York International Spirits Competition. In 2022, the latter organization named Hollow Creek South Carolina Distillery of the Year.
Yet awards alone never seemed to define Amick’s public image. Far more consistent was his emphasis on community service. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hollow Creek Distillery pivoted rapidly into hand-sanitizer production after being contacted by South Carolina officials. Craig explained publicly that the distillery retooled its operations almost immediately, ordering supplies and beginning deliveries within days. The company’s efforts earned a Community Service Award from Governor Henry McMaster. At a moment when many small businesses struggled simply to survive, the Amicks used their operation to support both state and local needs.
Their community orientation extended well beyond emergency response. Hollow Creek also developed programs to support local restaurants recovering from the pandemic downturn, including recipe-card marketing partnerships designed to drive customers toward neighboring businesses. The company’s public identity consistently framed successnot as isolation from the community but as active participation within it.
Today, visitors to Hollow Creek frequently encounter members of the Amick family personally involved in daily operations, from tours and tastings to labeling and packaging. The company intentionally cultivates the atmosphere of a family homestead rather than that of a detached industrial producer. That approach reflects Craig and Meredith Amick’s broader vision of preserving continuity between past and future while remaining rooted in the same South Carolina community their ancestors inhabited nearly three centuries earlier.
Even in the increasingly crowded world of craft distilling, Craig Amick’s story stands apart because the distillery itself functions almost as a living family archive. Hollow Creek is not merely abusiness venture attached to a historical narrative for marketing purposes. Instead, the historical narrative appears to have helped shape the business from its inception. The themes repeated throughout the public record of faith, marriage, family, stewardship, and local responsibility consistently reveal a man who viewed entrepreneurship less as an act of personal reinvention than as a continuation of inherited obligations.
Sources:
Hollow Creek Distillery official website, “About Us | “More Big News”,hollowcreekdistillery.com
Lake Murray Lifestyle | City Lifestyle, “Hollow Creek Distillery”, Shannon Barghols, citylifestyle.com
Anderson (SC) Magazine, “People to Watch: Craig & Meredith Amick of Hollow Creek Distillery”, Lisa Marie Carter, November 3, 2025
Lake Murray Country Magazine, “Meet a Local: Craig and Meredith Amick of Hollow Creek Distillery”, December 7, 2022, lakemurraycounty.com
Contributed by Tracy McLemore, National Whiskey Founders Chairman, Fairview, Tennessee
and Grant Fairchild,South Carolina State Leader, Greenville, South Carolina
