Shiner beer is a rite of passage for Texans, and it’s practically a street cred of sorts to have a bottle or three of Shiner Bock at the ready in your fridge.

Now the state’s iconic, independent brewery hopes to earn a place on your liquor shelf, too. In recent months, Spoetzl Brewery (& Distillery) has been quietly rolling out a trio of spirits bearing the Shiner name on its gleaming white campus – and this month, the fledgling Lavaca County operation is making its new vodka, gin and moonshine available exclusively throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Until this week, the only place you could find Shiner Vodka, Shiner Gin and Shiner ‘Shine was in Spoetzl’s tasting room in Shiner, just steps away from a tiny distillery area that pales in size to the massive brewery works pumping out a dozen varieties of Shiner beer per year.

“We’ve been selling the spirits right here in Shiner only,” said brand director Nick Welland. “That gave us some time to work out the kinks.”

Welland said what started out as a hobby project aimed at providing brewery visitors with “a more complete experience” became more of a mission.

“Once we got into it, it was like, we’re going to do it right,” he said. “This is not a cash grab.”

As evidence, Welland points to the products’ under-the-radar launch and a still purchased from a stalwart Scottish manufacturer.

“We’re just trying to make the best product we can,” he said. “When you’re brewing beer, you’re already 70 to 80 percent of the way there.”

Tom Fiorenzi, Spoetzl’s director of brewery and distillery operations, tapped Jessica Michalec, a fourth-generation Shiner native who had been a maintenance and engineering project coordinator at the brewery, to manage the distillery.

The spirits themselves are respectable: The vodka is, well, vodka, and the gin – “a gin for non-gin drinkers,” Michalec says – is a botanical, London-dry-style blend featuring notes of pecan and citrus. My favorite of the bunch, though, is the Shiner ‘Shine, a ruggedly grassy unaged spirit distilled from corn, barley and malt that rides off into your palate like a poncho-wearing Clint Eastwood.

“It makes people want to drink more, because of that long end,” Fiorenzi says.

The three spirits will be available throughout the DFW area for a year, and after that, who knows? The distillery also has a bourbon, rye and single malt whisky in the works.

“You think about how big the Shiner name is, but we really are a small operation,” Fiorenzi says. “We want to go in and make sure we do it right, and we’ll learn from that.”