Andrew Howell
Andrew Howell is the founder and co-owner of Thornton Distilling Company in Thornton, Illinois, a distillery built inside Illinois’ oldest standing brewery building, which is centered on a still-functioning limestone-filtered artesian well. Born in November, 1982, however, Howell’s story began far from Chicagoland. He is from Omaha, Nebraska, and he spent part of his youth working on farms in the region. That early exposure to agriculture later shows up as a consistent theme in how Thornton talks about ingredients and place: a distilling operation rooted in grain, water, and a particular site rather than a generic factory footprint.
As an adult, Howell moved to the Windy City for school, eventually graduating from Columbia College there. While in college he fell in love with beer brewing and found a job at Piece Brewing, a Chicago pub known for its beer-and-pizza culture. That hands-on work in a production-minded beverage setting, paired with a creative-city education, put him in the current that would later pull him out of conventional marketing work and into fermentation and spirits.
After college, Howell built his career in marketing, and he led the marketing department at a Chicago record label. But the gravitational pull of brewing and distilling kept intensifying, and soon he realized he was more passionate about home spirits than the work he was doing day to day. The pivot that followed became a search for the right building, the right water source, and a site with enough history to sustain a serious destination. That 2014 search led him to Thornton, a village with deep industrial limestone roots and a brewery structure dating to 1857, along with the original artesian well still intact.
By 2015, Howell and his partner had founded Thornton Distilling Company and began the long restoration of the 1857 brewery building. The restoration was central to the business, not a decorative afterthought, and the duo was keen on making the structure modern and welcoming, while retaining its history and bootlegging scars. But a distillery also needs a distiller, and for that Thornton’s buildout brought in Ari Klafter, who had prior experience at Privateer Rum and graduate study in brewing and distilling in Scotland. Klafter’s arrival completed the structure; Howell leading the founder/brand/venue side while the distilling program took shape under a dedicated production head.
As the business has continued to mature, Thornton has leaned into being more than a bottle brand, becoming a popular local wedding and events destination. Howell has spoken publicly about how personally that side lands, describing couples who marry there as becoming “like family” and noting that more than one wed couple met at the property on a first date. Community visibility has followed. In 2023, Thornton received an “Award of Merit” from the Chicago Southland Convention and Visitors Bureau at its annual meeting and luncheon, with Howell accepting on the distillery’s behalf.
The building itself also keeps writing new chapters. In January 2026, while planning lighting and electrical improvements near the artesian well area, Howell discovered a hidden, loaded Prohibition-era pistol in a limestone cavity/void behind loose mortar. He and the distillery contacted police; coverage reported the firearm did not match records in databases and was ultimately cleared. The episode became national-interest copy because it neatly fused Thornton’s selling points—historic catacombs, Prohibition lore, and physical evidence that the building once lived a more dangerous life than a modern cocktail bar. The pistol was later unofficially and loosely linked to 1930s Chicago mobster Al Capone.
Thornton Distilling Co. places particular emphasis on American whiskey as a centerpiece of its modern revival inside the historic 19th-century brewery complex that houses the distillery. The operation produces Dead Drop Bourbon, a straight bourbon built around a traditional mash bill dominated by corn and balanced with rye and malted barley. Aged in new charred American oak barrels, the whiskey develops notes of caramel, toasted oak, and baking spice while maintaining a smooth, approachable structure. The distillery also produces Dead Drop Rye, a spicier counterpart that highlights rye grain character while drawing additional sweetness and depth from barrel maturation. Alongside these flagship expressions, Thornton Distilling has experimented with additional whiskey styles and limited releases as its barrel inventory has matured. Small-batch bottlings and seasonal releases allow the distilling team to explore different mash bills, barrel selections, and aging approaches while maintaining a focus on grain-forward American whiskey. The resulting lineup underscores the distillery’s broader philosophy: producing carefully crafted spirits within one of Illinois’ most historically significant brewing and distilling sites while steadily building a whiskey program that continues to expand with time in the barrel.
In Chicago, history does not disappear; it settles into brick, timber, and water, waiting for the right hands to bring it forward again. Andrew Howell has done exactly that at Thornton Distilling. The old brewery he purchased was never just a building—it was a vessel, first for beer, then for silence, and now for whiskey shaped by an artesian well that runs as steadily as the city itself. The discovery of a mobster’s gun inside the walls did not feel like an interruption, it felt like confirmation. This place had always been tied to the long arc of Chicago’s drinking culture, from the legal to the illicit and back again.
Sources:
Beverage Trade Network | USA Trade Tasting, “Andrew Howell—Founder & Co-owner of Thornton Distilling Company”, usatradetasting.com
The Whiskey Wash (podcast), “A Sip of Knowledge With Thornton Distilling Co. (A Spirited Conversation)”, April 11, 2021, thewhiskeywash.com
CBS News | Chicago, IL, “Gun from 1924 found at Thornton Distilling Company could be linked to Al Capone”, CBS News Chicago, Noel Brennan, February 5, 2026
Fox News Digital, “Al Capone-era loaded gun is found hidden at Illinois distillery”, Andrea Margolis, February 2, 2026
The Lansing Journal, “From Al Capone to bridal suites—Thornton Distilling Co. mixes history and community”, Kinise Jordan, November 11, 2023
Chicago Beer Geeks, “Where Stone Teaches the Water to Sing”, Chicago Beer Geeks, NKosio, October 19, 2025
Contributed by Tracy McLemore, Fairview Tennessee