Leonard Firestone
Leonard L. Firestone was born in August of 1966, but only entered the whiskey business after first building a career in politics, professional golf, and communications. As a young adult, he graduated from the University of Colorado with a BS in political science, then worked as an advance representative for George W. Bush before Bush became President. Firestone subsequently held a position with the PGA Tour in Florida before returning to Washington, D.C., to work in communications. These varied assignments gave him experience in public presentation, event management, media, and business development—skills that would later become central to building an entire consumer brand in an industry he had never previously entered.
In 2000, Firestone and his brothers established Firestone Communications, a cable television network and satellite-uplink business. The venture brought him to Fort Worth, Texas, the city that became both his home and the defining geographical identity of his next company. The brothers sold the communications business in 2007, leaving Firestone free to pursue a longstanding interest in whiskey. But rather than immediately opening a distillery, he studied the emerging American craft-distilling industry, visited producers, examined the regulatory and financial demands of the business, and investigated whether a whiskey company could be built successfully in North Texas.
During that period of preparation, Firestone learned that his friend Troy Robertson was independently considering a similar enterprise. Robertson came from the oil-and-gas business and shared Firestone’s ambition to create a large, enduring whiskey brand identified unmistakably with Texas. The two men joined forces in 2010 and established Firestone & Robertson Distilling Co. in Fort Worth. Firestone brought experience in entrepreneurship, communications, promotion, and financing, while Robertson contributed his own business and operational background. Their complementary abilities shaped the company, and Robertson’s career and contributions have received fuller treatment in a separate story.
Firestone and Robertson wanted their whiskey to represent more than a Texas address, so they hired Rob Arnold, a scientifically trained distiller who could help translate that objective into raw materials and production methods. Arnold set about collecting more than 100 wild yeast samples around North Texas before isolating the proprietary “Brazos” strain from a pecan nut found on a ranch near Glen Rose. The distillery also developed relationships with Texas farmers for corn and wheat, establishing a connection between its whiskey and the state’s agricultural land. That emphasis on provenance was especially important to both Firestone and Robertson.
The company’s first commercial product, TX Blended Whiskey, appeared in 2012. It combined selected sourced whiskeys, but its blending, branding, finishing, and presentation were controlled in Fort Worth. Its packaging carried a carefully constructed regional identity: bottle tops were handmade from pieces of boot leather, canvas around the neck recalled covered wagons, while a silver-colored band gave the bottle another Western detail. In 2013, TX Blended Whiskey received a Double Gold medal and the Best American Craft Whiskey award at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, providing the young company with valuable national recognition. TX Blended Whiskey thus gave Firestone and Robertson a product to sell while their own distillate matured. Their larger objective was a bourbon made in North Texas with Texas-grown yellow dent corn, soft red winter wheat, local water, and the pecan-derived yeast strain. The whiskey went into new charred American oak barrels and aged through the region’s pronounced seasonal and daily temperature changes. Firestone & Robertson released TX Straight Bourbon in December 2016 after slightly more than four years of maturation. Its arrival moved the company beyond a successful blended label and established it as a producer of genuine Texas-distilled bourbon.
Rapid growth soon exceeded the capacity and ambitions of the company’s original location. In 2014, Firestone and Robertson acquired the former Glen Garden Country Club, a historic Fort Worth property where golf legends Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson had once worked as caddies. The partners preserved important elements of the property while converting the grounds into Whiskey Ranch, an expansive distillery, visitor center, tasting venue, and event facility. Opened in 2017, the development gave TX Whiskey a production home proportionate to the founders’ national ambitions and created a public destination where the brand’s Fort Worth identity could be experienced directly. Whiskey Ranch also made Firestone & Robertson an attractive acquisition candidate. In fact, Firestone and Robertson had begun to receive interest from several major spirits businesses, but they considered Pernod Ricard particularly well equipped to expand the TX brand. The French company had global distribution strength and extensive whiskey experience through brands that included Jameson, The Glenlivet, Chivas Regal, Ballantine’s, and Royal Salute.
Finally, on August 5, 2019, Pernod Ricard announced that Pernod Ricard USA would acquire Firestone & Robertson Distilling Co., including the TX portfolio and Whiskey Ranch, but the financial terms were not disclosed. For Firestone, the transaction was not simply a transfer of bottles and trademarks—he and Robertson had spent nine years creating the products, assembling the distilling team, developing Whiskey Ranch, and cultivating a following around a specifically Texas expression of whiskey. They selected Pernod Ricard because its financial resources, international distribution system, and experience managing established whiskey brands could take TX into markets that remained beyond the reach of an independent regional company. Pernod Ricard completed the acquisition on August 30, 2019, and Firestone subsequently exited the business he had co-founded.
After leaving the company, Firestone turned more of his attention toward civic service. He was elected to the Fort Worth City Council in 2021 and represented District 7, applying his experience as an entrepreneur and employer to municipal questions. He has also served on the board of managers of the John Peter Smith Health Network and participated in other business and civic ventures. His whiskey career lasted less than a decade under independent ownership, yet within that period he helped turn an idea researched after the sale of a communications company into a major distillery, a nationally recognized Texas whiskey brand, and an acquisition by a multinational spirits conglomerate
Sources:
Haute Living, “What’s on My Desk: Whiskey Distiller Leonard Firestone”, January 10, 2017, hauteliving.com
D Magazine, “Firestone & Robertson Distilling Opens a Whiskey Ranch in Fort Worth”, Zac Crain, February 1, 2018, dmagazine.com
Dallas Innovates, “One-of-a-Kind Distillery Coming…”, October 5, 2017, dallasinnovates.com
Pernod Ricard Spirits official website, pernod-ricard.com
Vail Symposium, “Leonard Firestone”, vailsymposium.org
Contributed by Tracy McLemore, Fairview, Tennessee
