A Scotch-Fueled Conversation With Nick Offerman
If there’s one thing Nick Offerman and Ron Swanson, his breakout-role on Parks and Recreation, can agree on it’s this: the inherent joy of kicking back a quality glass of scotch. Of course, they agree on much more: While wildly different personality-wise (the real Offerman is affable and open-minded compared to the stubborn-curmudgeon Swanson), both have an affinity for wood-working, nature, and steak. But it’s the scotch that burns, literally and figuratively, warmest in their bellies.
So it’s no happy accident that a creative decision for his character has evolved into Offerman becoming a pitchman for scotch distillery Lagavulin. The two have also partnered on a trio of limited edition bottles of Lagavulin that bear Offerman’s very name. Their latest creation, Lagavulin Offerman Edition: Charred Oak Cask, is a smokey scotch that Swanson himself would salivate over.
Over a glass of his very own libation, Offerman spoke to Esquire about topics one absolutely should—must?—speak about while swirling a glorious glass of brown-hued heaven: his passions, scotch, farm-culture, and the author Wendell Berry. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Esquire: Do you remember your first scotch?
Nick Offerman: The weird thing is, it was actually Lagavulin 16. It’s easy to remember because I’m from a small town in Illinois and I was so culturally ignorant growing up. It was an incredible luxury when I started drinking beer, because you had to drive a half an hour to a specific gas station to get a six pack of St. Paulie Girl, Heineken, or Corona. Those were the premium imports and other than that you just had the big brand domestic stuff; this was in the 80s and 90s. When I finally moved to Chicago and became a theater actor, the fact that I could find a bar where I could get Guinness on tap was mind blowing. I was like, What is this, Paris?! It was incredible. When my friend got me my first glass of scotch, I was around 29.
Oh, that was my age when I first tried it.
It knocked my socks off. It’s not like I was part of a culture where I was going out to bars and affording whatever I wanted. I was a theater actor and I didn’t know about good scotch, I just knew about whisky.
Johnnie Walker never came your way?
I mean, I’ve had it. I’ve had blends, but nothing ever stuck with me except that Lagavulin; it has such an impactful flavor profile. I probably didn’t have a lot of other whiskies between my first Lagavulin and when Parks and Rec started about 10 years later. So it was weird because it turned out Lagavulin was [show creator] Mike Schur’s favorite as well. It was just an absolute stroke of luck that he put it in my character Ron Swanson’s desk.
Well, let’s take a drink. What do you say when you toast, by the way?
It depends on where I am, but when I'm around scotch, I say “Sláinte.”
Sláinte, sir.
Sláinte.
That’s good. There’s a smokiness there, which I think lends itself to a wood-burning fire and nice fuzzy memories.
It’s true. There is something really inscrutable about the way it taps into a sense of memory and comfort. For me, I grew up in a house that had three wood-burning stoves. When I think what I’d want in a flask when I’m out cutting firewood, it’s this profile. It’s a warming campfire in a glass.
My father is a big scotch fan and to this day it’s still the biggest treat for him, especially around the holidays or a birthday. Does yours drink scotch?
I turned my dad onto single malts. I come from a big farming family and they enjoy a Manhattan or an Old Fashioned and a lot of domestic beer. There’s a frugality to it; his whisky choice would involve an affordability. Among other things, when I was able to go away to the city and bring home to my family, was single malt scotch and he became a big fan as well. He’s even been involved in some of the Offerman Expressions and he’s in some of the commercials, too.
Do you have a favorite place to have a drink of scotch?
When we go fishing up in Minnesota. My dad, brother, and I will be with the whole family; our mom and two sisters and some nieces, we’ll play Uicher or Liverpool Rummy. Both of those card games are flagrantly fueled by this beverage.
How did this collaboration come about with the people at Lagavulin?
There is a little bit of a fairytale quality to it. It’s as if someone said, “Listen you’re going to have to represent our massages, so we’ll have to massage you and we’ll pay you for as many back rubs as you want. Are you cool with that?” So this sort of bypasses any of the superficiality involved with, like, endorsing a toothpaste or something. Organically I came together with my favorite drink through my TV show. Ron Swanson, my character, was known for his love of scotch, steak, bacon, eggs, the outdoors, canoes and women that looked like my wife. Strangely, that became conflated to the point where we even wound-up shooting at the Lagavulin Distillery in Islay, Scotland. They said, “Let’s keep this going!” so we wound up making almost 50 commercials. It’s ridiculous that this has befallen me and so all I can do is keep trying to mind my manners, do the dishes so that they’ll hopefully have me back again.
But to be frank, you’re a great actor; you could have easily been cast as someone who hates scotch as well.
Well, thank you. That’s generous. Or, I could have been cast as someone who enjoys vodka or something distasteful like that.
I know you’re a prolific writer, and the late Stephen Sondheim once explained that while he’d write instrumental pieces sober, he’d never write a song with lyrics without a glass of something close to him. Do you drink scotch while you write or do any other activities for that matter?
I never knew that about Sondheim but I’m not surprised that there’s a little bit of alchemy to his genius. When I’m writing a musical, I only smoke blunts, which is why I’ve never finished one song [laughs]. But drinking in general, I come from a hardworking family and I generally eschew day-drinking. Especially the older I get. So I usually don’t have a drink until later. On the occasions that I have had a glass of scotch combined with writing something, I usually find it pretty enjoyable but I’m never at my best. The produce that comes from writing while drinking usually requires some toning-down the next day as I’ll usually get a little too fiery. Like most of what I do, when I’m crafting things I try to have all my faculties available and unclouded. When I finish my work, whether it’s writing, performing or wood-working, then I’ll reward myself with a dessert of a nice, neat glass of scotch.
You fit so well into two very different worlds, both Hollywood and the creative community as well as with hardworking everyman types. How do you find balance between the two?
I have to be honest, I don’t think I would have ended up such a working class-type or retained my sort of everyman quality if I could have helped it. I went to theater school and I wasn’t very good, so while the talented kids were being showered with accolades and getting to learn how to be the star of the show, I wasn’t being cast in much of anything. So I became a scenery carpenter for many years while I was waiting to become an actor. And in hindsight, I’m very grateful that happened because that is what led me to my wood-working discipline and allowed me to still feel like I can hold my head around my incredible family of public servants in small-town Illinois.
The mayor of the town is my dad and the whole family is either a nurse, paramedic, librarian, school teacher, or farmer, with my brother a craft-brewer. So they’re all salt of the earth and I’m an incredible black sheep who went off to become an artist who lives in the city. But it’s kind of an ongoing thing and the two worlds don’t mesh very well. When my most uninformed-about-Hollywood family members back home ask me about it, they’ll wonder if I met Arnold Schwarzenegger and when I’m going to be on TMZ.
I’d say blissfully uninformed.
Yeah, absolutely. But I love farming and agriculture too, so we’ll talk about their lives or my house that my wife Megan [Mullally] and I share in Los Angeles because they can’t really comprehend the kind of stuff that I work on as an actor. They’ll shake their heads and say, “What is that?” But at the same time, all of those kids from theater school who never had to swing a hammer and never had to perform physical labor in their lives are baffled by that side of me—“now, you made this table? How could you do that?”
I feel like the most fully formed people in show-business, or any career, are the ones who make it later in their years.
Well I thought I had “made it” when I met and married Megan Mullaly, a legendary actress who’s gorgeous and I consider miles above me in every way except for using tools. I’m still better at that [laughs]. But in my early 30s, I had a wood shop and was working as an unknown actor, doing guest-star parts in movies and was paying my health insurance and making a healthy living. I thought, “Holy cow, this is way better than I ever thought I’d do.”
But I was 38 when I got cast as Ron Swanson on Parks and Recreation and that was just a bonkers catapult; it was a skyrocket I could have never fathomed. I went from being pretty much completely unknown to having much more relative visibility and much more clout; whatever I brought to the table had suddenly been made apparent to people by the brilliant writers and creators of Parks and Rec. So through my good fortune, suddenly I had to start hiring employees for my wood shop.
But that’s the interesting thing; if things go too well for you, then all you do is acting jobs. Then any other part of life, like taking care of your home, cooking, building furniture, pets or child-rearing, the more successful you are, the more likely it is you pay other people to take care of these other aspects. I wouldn’t accuse myself of having the wherewithal or wisdom—I just didn’t have the opportunity or choice to become that. So I had the good fortune to become a laborer and then got some fun acting jobs. Now I’m 52 and I'm still always trying to balance those things.
You recently recorded the audiobook for the author Wendell Berry’s The Need to Be Whole. What drives you to use your platform to raise awareness about someone like Wendell and his ideals?
I just feel like I have a pretty good self-knowledge and part of that involves knowing that I can be charming to an audience and that I can make people laugh and speak about things in a relatively knowledgeable way. But I also know I’m incredibly ignorant as a human being. We all are. So if I have visibility and have people’s ears, why not? But I happened to come across this writer Wendell Berry and I don’t understand why he’s not Bob Dylan or required reading in all of our schools. His writing is so full of common sense and incredible empathy towards humans, but also the planet. It moves me to tears, so whenever I get the opportunity, I just want to share that with people.
What was it about Wendell’s writing that you took so immediately to?
When art is sublime, it has that warm feeling that somehow the artist meant it specifically for you. When I was reading Wendell Berry’s stories early on, he takes common people, usually in a farming community, and in one case a fictional community on the banks of the Kentucky River, and he gives them so much reverence. He ennobles the hard work we all do to take care of ourselves, land, animals, and ecosystems. His writing is about normal people who have a responsibility to their community and their neighbors. One of Wendell’s fellow agrarians, Aldo Leopold, has a great quote that I’ll paraphrase: “Being a good conservator of the planet means doing the right thing even when no one is watching, and even when doing the wrong thing is legal.”
Wendell’s stories are basically about my mom and dad and their parents; these unknown people who are saints to me because they give of themselves, they live lives of service thanklessly because they understand that that is the richest, most rewarding life. Not chasing materialism, not being a consumer in this flashy, fast-moving disposable society. But looking at how they can take care of their society in a sustainable way.
So Wendell is a person who blends art and the heartland, which reminds me a lot of you. Does that ring true?
It does, and that’s why I was so moved by him.
Well Nick, I’m equal parts tipsy and fulfilled talking to you.
Well, I appreciate it. I’m also feeling not unhappy. Thank you for being gentle with me.
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