Tacoma was an unsuspecting place for award-winning whisky shop. It’s closed now
The sleek whiskey and spirits shop in downtown Tacoma closed for good on April 30, a decision the owners made several months ago, according to posts on Instagram and confirmed previously to The News Tribune.
“Yesterday marked the end of a significant chapter,” reads a May 1 post from McCallum and Sons Whisky. “Three and a half years have gone by in an instant. Too many whiskies, stories, memories, and friends to recount here. If you’ve even stepped foot in the shop at one point, you have been a part of this life altering journey.”
Maxine and Glen McCallum opened their namesake boutique in December 2021. It was, to put it lightly, a stunning space: a veritable library of spirits from around the world, carefully lining floor-to-ceiling shelves and backlit.
“We want it to feel like you’re walking into a Louis Vuitton or Chanel store but for whisky — minus the snooty attitude,” Glen McCallum told The News Tribune at the time.
Maxine McCallum spearheaded the design, while Glen, a veteran of the U.S. Army, amassed an enviable selection of whiskies, brandies, rums and more, with price points ranging from affordable to four-figures collector’s level.
After confirming that they would close the shop late last year, they did not respond to several requests for comment in recent months to elaborate on the decision.
They purchased the building at 1115 A St. for $1.9 million from Karen McGrath, whose own family’s Watermark Gifts had occupied the space for almost 50 years, The News Tribune reported in July 2021.
The shop hosted distillers, special tastings and private events. The storefront kept a low profile with little signage and nothing to ogle — perhaps purposefully due to the high-caliber contents on the other side of the door and windows, blocked by curtains.
In 2023, the store was recognized as the “single outlet retailer of the year” by the World Whiskies Awards, hosted by the British publishing company behind Whisky Magazine and other drinks-focused publications.
In January 2024, Glen McCallum shared on Instagram that the shop was broken into for the third time. Their home had also been broken into three times, according to the post. Calling out these incidents and break-ins at other businesses, he wrote, “At some point we have to ask ourselves if this is the type of city we want to do business in.”
It’s not clear how, or if, those incidents played into the ultimate closure this spring.
When they first spoke to The News Tribune, Glen McCallum said they hoped to open a sort of private lounge in the adjacent space. Outside of events held in the shop itself, it does not appear the expansion idea happened.
McCallum and Sons Whisky was definitely out of the ordinary — not only in Tacoma but in Washington state. Since the sale of alcohol was privatized in 2011 after voters approved the shift, any liquor store generally must be at least 10,000 square feet in size. Outside of beer and wine shops, many state-run liquor stores were grandfathered in through the privatization effort. The McCallums’ shop satisfied the spatial requirement because the entirety of the 1920s-era building is, in fact, 10,000 square feet over two stories including a basement, per the county property record.
Commenters on their Instagram posts about the closure and a thread on the local Reddit page noted the unique character of the niche business with a knowledgeable expert leading it, and shared in their disappointment of losing another one downtown.
This story was originally published May 4, 2025 at 5:00 AM.