Audiophiles and sophisticated revelers, listen up: Jeff and Christa Duggan are doing something aurally unique in Anaheim.
Combining a lifelong love affair with music and distilling, the husband-wife duo have opened Stone Groove Stillhouse, a spirits house and restaurant-bar that, in part, challenges traditional notions of how aged spirits come to be, a concept where vibrations of sound meet the alchemy of alcohol.
“Our whole thing,” Jeff Duggan explained, “we’re not trying to circumvent Father Time. Our shtick is not accelerating aging. Our shtick is spirits that have been influenced by the power of music.”
Stone Groove Stillhouse’s thesis is loud and clear the moment you step inside: reel-to-reel magnetic tape plays on a tape recorder at the host desk. Proper acoustic treatments allow guests to enjoy the all-anolog music while creating immediate intimacy. Cabinetry fashioned to look like sound mixers. And bourbons and whiskeys concocted with assistance of country and blues.
The Duggans’ venture stems from decades of personal passion, with music at the heart of their concept. “I’ve loved music since I was very young,” said Jeff Duggan, reminiscing about his mother taking him to cross-country to see The Romantics live. The band’s drummer, Jimmy Marinos, sparked Jeff’s own drumming journey through jazz, rock and even garage bands.
While Jeff, a self-declared “science nerd” with a penchant for chemistry, never pursued music as a career, his appreciation of it led to a later-in-life hobby: high-end audio. Proudly calling himself “an audiophile to the bone,” Jeff designed the space to “sound as good as my listening room at home,” he said.
“The whole space was designed acoustically first, and then the aesthetics came after,” explained Jeff Duggan. With the assistance of Uncanned Music, a group that creates sound systems and playlists, which helped install the commercial audio setup, Christa Duggan notes how venues tend to overlook acoustics despite investing heaps of cash on top-tier equipment. “It’s very difficult to do acoustics and have something that looks awesome,” she said. “Most acoustics are not pretty. They’re not aesthetically pleasing.”
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Yet the pair succeeds at it. Sound-absorbing treatments are placed thoughtfully on walls, giving the obtuse angle-shaped venue a comfortable conversational volume, even as the room is filled with rich, clear music. The playlists include such tunes as Willie Nelson’s “Devil in a Sleeping Bag,” Townes Van Zandt’s “Standin’,” Etta James’ “Tell Mama” and Terry Reid’s “Seed of Memory,” to name a few.
So, how does this deep appreciation for music and sound influence spirits? After a decade of roasting at home, the couple opened Portola in 2011. When roasting and selling coffee turned professional, winemaking became Jeff Duggan’s new hobby and that led him into the world of fermentation, aging and the complex chemistry of alcohol creation. This taught Jeff how wood barrels extract compounds, a process influenced by time, temperature, pressure and — cue rimshot — agitation.
This understanding sparked the idea behind Stone Groove Stillhouse’s spirits made in-house. Jeff knew that spirits, when fresh from the still (the device used to separate alcohol from fermented liquids), are clear. Barrel aging is what imparts flavor and color, a process traditionally spanning years of passivity. Connecting this with his drummer’s instinct for rhythm and an audiophile’s grasp of sound, Jeff wondered, “How can I use music in a more significant fashion, use it beyond just the superficial level?”
Stone Groove Stillhouse has engineered a proprietary process that converts audio signals (blues, country, jazz) into an energy source that agitates the barrels and extracts compounds.
The resulting spirits, all made in-house, are used in the venue’s menus. “There’s no difference between these two from a base bourbon,” said Jeff Duggan as he presented two bottles. “The only difference here is the variable of music genre.” Different music genre vibrations resulted in two distinct tastes. Their initial releases, a Country Bourbon and Blues Bourbon, taste different. “We always isolate and always start with the same base so that the music is the predominant factor and how it tastes different.”
Their upcoming offerings will include a rye matured to classic rock and a single malt influenced by jazz fusion. Future releases promise more diverse sonic profiles as well: a rye infused with hip-hop and a classical single malt inspired by Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Beyond whiskey, the two plan to introduce a rum and a vodka, all undergoing their special process.
Music aside, Stone Groove Stillhouse is quite the looker. The 50-seat space features warm lighting, a long marble-top bar with 21 sky-blue seats, booth seating illuminated by glass pendant fixtures and a gleaming Arnold Holstein, a copper distillation behind floor-to-ceiling glass, wherein the Duggan’s create their spirits.
Bar director Matt Fitzgerald, a native Londoner whose 16-year career includes the opening team at the American Bar at the Savoy Hotel, created a menu of libations like Velvet Elvis (featuring Stone Groove Blues Bourbon and green apples), Tragic Kingdom (creamsicle vodka, Mexican orange and vanilla), Antiquated (Classic Rock Rye, shitake, ponzu and miso) and Cockney Violin (gin, Campari, black plum and Lambrusco), to name a few. Whiskey flights and full bottles are available.
Stone Groove’s kitchen, led by executive chef Jessica Luevano, a Le Cordon Bleu graduate with 12 years of experience, including time at Disneyland’s Club 33, features a seasonal menu that also uses Stone Groove’s spirits.
Christa Duggan emphasized the importance of creating a sensory experience for guests who walk in for the first time, even beyond the science. She hopes guests feel a ”vibey, romantic feeling,” She added, “I didn’t want us to lose the feeling that music evokes, because I love all the science, and honestly we wouldn’t be here without it, but as somebody that does appreciate the looks and the feel of places and music in general, I want my customers to come in and just have that feeling.”
Find it: Inside the Make Building, 500 S. Anaheim Blvd., Anaheim, 714-860-4211