The Last of Us Episode 7: Is Hamblen whisky real?

In The Last of Us Episode 7, Ellie and Riley take a few swigs from a bottle of Hamblen – but is it a real whisky, can you buy it, or is it completely fictional?

In our review of Episode 7, we called it a “moving, faithful adaptation of Ellie’s devastating backstory; success can be found in deviation, but why change perfection?”

It mostly takes place three weeks before she met Joel, when her best friend Riley sneaks her out to show her the “four wonders of the mall” before she heads to Atlanta to join the Fireflies.

On their way there, they find a bottle of whisky beside a corpse and decide to take a drink – so, is Hamblen a real drink?

Is Hamblen whisky real?

No, sadly you can’t buy a bottle of Hamblen whisky as it was created just for the show.

This isn’t to say it’ll never become available to buy. HBO and the powers that be may see an opportunity to sell a limited edition run of Hamblen, so we’ll update this space if anything is announced.

In Episode 7, Ellie and Riley find the bottle next to a man who, presumably, drank and drugged himself to death after finding out he was infected. “This isn’t moonshine, either. It’s from before,” Ellie says, before they both take a drink on the roof. They also take a few swigs on the carousel.

HBO

In the latest episode of The Last of Us podcast, co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann said this is likely the first time she ever tasted alcohol, if not an early experience. “The idea’s better than the thing itself,” Druckmann said.

“This is a rite of passage. I don’t know if every kid goes through it, but certainly a lot do. I did. My parents had this weird cube… that had this little tiny knob and you would open it, and inside you’d have all these bottles,” Mazin recalled.

“My parents weren’t big drinkers. So the bottles that were there were things people had brought over for the very occasional dinner party. My sister and I were like, ‘Let’s do it.’ I think the one we chose, because we liked the bottle and the name and the vague smell, was Amaretto Disaronno.

“We both took a way too big swig, and it felt like I had done something permanently damaging to my mouth and throat [laughs]… later on, things change. There’s something about that first time where you’re trying to be grown up, and you’re not.”

The Last of Us Episode 8 will be available to stream on March 5 in the US and March 6 in the UK. Check out the rest of our content here, and our coverage of the latest episode below:

Episode 7 review | Ending explained | Riley and Left Behind explained | How does Riley die in the game? | What song plays at the end? | When does Episode 7 take place? | Dawn of the Wolf Part 2 explained