What is One Handsome Bastard?
Most Old Town bars pour other people’s spirits. One Handsome Bastard makes its own. It is a micro-distillery and cocktail kitchen at 7042 E Indian School Rd, a short walk west of the Marshall Way galleries, where small-batch vodka and gin are distilled on site and the copper equipment sits in view of a poured-concrete bar.
The name needs explaining, and the owners are happy to. Brad Ritchie loved cocktails and vodka, and every morning he would look in the mirror and announce, “That is one handsome bastard!” After he died of cancer, his mother Trish Ritchie and his daughter Bren Ritchie opened the distillery in February 2024 and put his line on the door. Ten percent of profits from vodka sales go to a local nonprofit supporting the fight against cancer.
The room is modern-industrial: Edison bulbs, the concrete bar, sliding garage doors and an outdoor patio onto Indian School Road. The kitchen is built for drinking rather than dining, with stacked burgers, flatbreads, salads and shareable starters. Expect a neighborhood crowd early in the evening and a livelier one on music and DJ nights.
It is a family bar with a working still, and that combination is rare in Old Town. If the Stetson Drive blocks feel like too much, this is a calmer drink a few minutes away.
How to drink here
Start with the house spirits. The vodka is the flagship, and the flavored line covers vanilla, lemon, green chile and blood orange. A simple cocktail or a straight taste shows what the still is doing better than anything with five modifiers. The distillery’s website lists competition medals for its vodka.
Eat from the shareable side. The menu’s headliners are pretzel sliders, crispy bacon Brussels sprouts, nachos and the stacked burgers, with flatbreads for a table. It is bar food done properly, not a tasting menu.
Book the class for a group. The distillery runs a cocktail infusion class and tasting, and you leave with your own infused spirit. For a birthday or a bachelorette weekend it beats a third bar on the same block. Private parties are booked through the website.
Check the calendar. Live music, DJ nights, tastings and game-day viewings rotate through the week; the nightlife guide and happy hour guide put it in context.
Nearby. Coach House, the long-running tavern a short walk west on Indian School, is the nightcap, and the Thursday ArtWalk on Marshall Way is around the corner.
Three lives at 7042 Indian School
The address has a short but telling history. In 2008 Valley celebrity chef Eddie Matney opened Eddie’s House here, a big-hearted room of Lebanese-accented American comfort food run by a chef who worked the floor like a host. It survived a Chapter 11 filing in 2014 and closed in 2017.
Blue Clover took the space next, turning it into a distillery and bar in the late 2010s, part of the wave of small craft producers that brought breweries, wineries and tasting rooms into Old Town. The wine tasting rooms and breweries of the same period changed what a night downtown could look like: smaller rooms, local product, the maker on site.
One Handsome Bastard kept the still and changed the story. The Ritchies distill in partnership with Blue Clover Spirits, so the craft side of the address continues, but the room is now built around a family and a memorial rather than a brand. Water runs through reverse osmosis and charcoal filtration before it goes into the spirits, and the production is small enough that what you drink at the bar was made a few feet away.
In a district whose 2020s reputation is built on pool parties and bottle service, a mother and daughter making vodka in honor of the man who named it is an unusual and welcome thing.