The Real-Life Diet of Nick Offerman, Who Can't Eat Like Ron Swanson Anymore

At this point, it’s safe to say the actor and comedian Nick Offerman has done it: His over-the-top take on of the classic masculine archetype has achieved escape velocity into a three-dimensional persona that’s equal parts open-hearted acceptance and flannel-clad hilarity. His portrayal of Ron Swanson on Parks and Recreation was widely-beloved, perhaps because it quickly became apparent to audiences that this character didn’t deviate very much from the real Offerman. Much like his character in the show, he’s really a woodworker, he’d really live off of steak and bacon (if his cardiologist would allow it), and he really does love his Lagavulin whisky, who he's partnered with on a series of special edition releases.

He’s also used his hyper-masculine persona to more dramatic ends. He took home an Emmy for his role in The Last of Us for his portrayal of a man stuck in isolation at the end of the world. “They needed a guy who could use a shovel, and there are only three of us in Hollywood,” he jokes. “Harrison Ford passed and Jane Lynch was not available, so that fell to me.”

Offerman told GQ about what makes him a good Scotch pitchman, how listening to audiobooks while doing jigsaw puzzles became a favorite pastime, and how he's disappointing Parks and Rec fans by ordering the salad.

For Real-Life Diet, GQ talks to athletes, celebrities, and other high performers about their diet, exercise routines, and pursuit of wellness. Keep in mind that what works for them might not necessarily be healthy for you.

GQ: This is your fourth edition with Lagavulin, right? How did your partnership with them come to be?

Nick Offerman: Well, I mean, I've had a lot of lucky things happen to me in my life. One of them, perhaps the luckiest, or the I guess the luckiest would be meeting my my bride and somehow hornswoggleing her into taking taking my hand in marriage, but maybe the second luckiest thing would be running into this relationship with Lagavulin.

It had already been my favorite Scotch, and then it ended up being on Parks and Rec. Then we went and shot at the distillery and I hit it off with them and they had me start doing these funny commercials for them. Eventually they said, “hey, what if we make a version of your favorite Scotch with your name and face on it?” So we started these collaborations—you know, it's funny, they really would like me to somehow attest that I have any level of expertise, or any refinement to my palate. In truth, there's a wizard named Stuart Morrison, who is our master blender, and he with his team of distillers—they're the alchemists. He's the sorcerer at whose elbow I am allowed to stand as an apprentice. He lays out choices for me and basically says, “you get to pick what you think is the yummiest.”

I’m not McConaughey or Clooney—they didn’t approach me because of my A-list status. Unlike those guys, I’m actually a collaborator in the creation of this gorgeous elixir. So, I feel like a little more of a chef when I’m selling it to the world. The thing I love about this latest iteration is that it has some sweet notes to it—there’s some vanilla, some honey. I would recommend getting a piece of lemon meringue pie and having a dram of this Caribbean casks finish. It’s exquisite.

Not a bad gig at all.

I've had worse gigs. After the first three collaborations, we just talk about the things that I love and the flavors of life that I love. So we talked about jazz and my history as a saxophone player, and my love of smoky jazz clubs.

Wait, were you really playing the saxophone in all those episodes of Parks and Rec? [In the show, Offerman’s character has a secret saxophone god persona named Duke Silver.]

I believe I'm legally prohibited from describing exactly the process, but yes indeed. I was playing the horn when we shot those scenes. But the problem is Duke Silver is a profoundly more talented hornblower than myself. So there may have been a little sweetening on the back end of that production. I couldn't tell you, I've never been in the same room as that guy, but I hear he's terrific. They say he can blow like a motherfucker.

But for the Scotch, we talked about baseball and we talked about meat. For many people, meat might sound like one category, but to me, that's an entire world that I could craft 12 different stations from. We also talked about my love of maritime adventures and sailing and wooden boats. We came up with recipes from those directions, and we ultimately settled on this idea of taking this 11 year aged liquid, and finishing it in rum casks.

So Stewart starts sending me samples and it's so fun. I mean, it's really like working for a candy maker, and we’re just choosing which candy is the most delicious.

OK, so we know you love the meats and the booze, but what does the daily diet look like?

When this opportunity came to talk with you, I said to myself, "Well, I'll do this, but you're gonna make people sad." It's because you know, I'm 53 and I, across my life, I’ve gone through wonderful seasons of indulgence.

To be a theater actor in my twenties in Chicago, part of the job description is you're required to consume at least three pints at night, after the play, in the pub. And on special occasions, you add some whisky and some pub food. Then in my late thirties I got the role of Ron Swanson, and my boss Mike Schur asked me to stay husky. He said, “you know, I've worked on other shows where people like lost weight when the show got picked up, but I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't mind staying beefy.” And I said that's a very nice thing to hear from my boss, I think we're gonna get along just fine.

That Ron Swanson was such a fan of all things meat and Scotch and delicious smoky beverages—you know, I fully lived life to the hilt. Because I'm a good employee, of course, and I wanted to do a good job for my boss. So I went above and beyond. I daresay I have not one but two meat smokers.

Then when that job ended, all of the things I kept getting offered were like…chubby, sad guy roles. They were all guys that used to be badasses, like an ex-college football player in his tighty whities crying in the mirror. Every role was basically some version of that. I said, you know, that's fun, but I would like a little more variety in my work as an actor.

Also my cardiologist said, “hey, sit down here for a second, I want to show you some numbers and maybe some informational videos.” So basically, for a few different reasons, Mother Nature suggested that I trim things down and get a little healthier.

So now by my early fifties, I've changed my situation to where I exercise much more regularly. I've always been an athlete and had athletic skill, and I've always been strong. I guess because I've always worked as a laborer to some extent. So I've basically turned that into regular exercise and trimmed down my diet so that it's pretty boring most of the time, and I reserve sort of treat times for when I can still indulge in my favorites. The one thing that I do is every day for my dessert course, I have my glass of Scotch. I had to quit keeping beer in the house because I can't. I'm a Midwesterner and so I have a hard time drinking just one beer and after about age 45, the beer was visibly sticking to my middle. So I generally reserve my enjoyment of alcoholic beverages to my Scotch.

So tell me about this diet you’re saying is so boring.

So for breakfast I alternate between a couple of things. I used to just love making breakfast with my dad every morning, and it was like we were making it for Ron Swanson—like all the bacon and eggs, and then we’d go to our neighbors and borrow some more eggs. Many of the attributes of Ron Swanson came from my mortal proclivities and then the comedy writers took that.

Now, I have two eggs every morning—I usually have them hard boiled because it's convenient. I have some blueberries. I have a couple of tablespoons of almond butter and black coffee. It's funny, it's powerfully satisfying. I wake up and I'm so excited about my almond butter, which is hilarious.

One of my favorite things in the world is a full English breakfast, and any version of that. Or biscuits and gravy. I mean, just any chicken-fried steak or eggs with hash browns and gravy just across the board. The higher the cholesterol score, the more I want it in my belly. I just reserve those things for the weekend—if I'm going to go on a big hike for example. My best friend and I go to this place in Los Feliz called House of Pies, which has an incredible chicken fried steak breakfast that has got to come in at like 3,500 calories—it’s crazy. But then if you're gonna go hike for six hours I think it evens out.

So what’s on the menu for lunch?

Well again, my regular thing and this is one of the keys to not becoming a fat actor—with all due respect to the large thespians—that is not in my particular wheelhouse. So I have a salad with protein. My favorite one has great fruit sections, chickens, sesame seeds, and avocado is delicious. You know, I miss bread very much.

Do you avoid bread?

Part of my thing is I’ve gotten pretty paleo, but bread, pizza and pasta are things that I really love—and Megan, too. So we make special occasions where and when we do we do it right? Like we go to a taco restaurant and just go crazy with an incredible taco spread. Then we go then we go for a second course to an ice cream place called McConnell's and get like a half gallon. We cheat, we cheat hard.

What's the preferred ice cream flavor for both of you?

Anything with these words in the name: sea salt, caramel, peanut butter. Anything in that wheelhouse. This place McConnell's out of Santa Barbara has really incredible flavors. My favorite is just called sea salt cream and cookies. They also have one called whisky and pecan praline.

Nice. What are you doing for dinner on a normal basis? And when you splurge?

Well, in keeping it pretty paleo I’ll do a small piece of filet mignon or a small steak leaning towards the lean side. I’ll do a plank of salmon or rotisserie chicken. Then vegetables—like a savory way to do carrots or root vegetables or Brussels sprouts, or cauliflower. Again it's healthy, but it's tasty. For me, it’s just the older I get, the better I feel.

It's funny though, when I go to a restaurant, I can tell immediately if the waitstaff person is a fan because I'll order a salad and they'll look so crestfallen. I'm so sorry, but it's a health thing! If I ate like Ron Swanson, I would legitimately have died a long time ago. I want to live to play other hilarious characters.

There is hardly a character that I can think of that has had the impact you had with Ron Swanson.

Well, thank you. I'm very lucky to run into some really good writers, but I never dreamed something like this would happen. Mainly bacon and Scotch are where the Ron Swanson phenomenon manifests in my life. It's tapered off now, but it still happens a few times a year where I'll order a cheeseburger at a restaurant and then it'll be delivered to the table and there'll be like an inch thick of just bacon. I’ll look around and I'll see like a chef peeking out from the kitchen giving me a thumbs up. I’ll be like, “thank you so much… this will kill me.” So I carry a little ziploc sandwich bag and I'll slip it into the sandwich bag and put the bacon in my pocket for later.

The same thing happens where I can be anywhere at any event and somebody will come up and hand me two inches of Scotch in a tumbler. I'm like wow, thank you so much. But, you know, I can’t tap into that and go about my daily life making conversation or staying on my feet. I really appreciate the largesse that he [Ron Swanson] has put into the world and that people want to be so generous with me. So you know, I do my best to at least make them laugh or share it with a few people around me.

So, you mentioned hiking—is that your typical workout? How often are you hitting the gym?

Whenever possible I love to get my workout outside. So I go hiking, I do stand up paddleboarding, kayaking, canoeing and cycling—I do a lot of cycling. It all depends on where I am. I used to run also but my plantar fasciitis and my knees started to complain, so I tried to shift more to cycling than running.

I also just do circuit training with a trainer sporadically because, you know, one of the weird pros and cons of getting consistent work as an actor means that on any given day, I'm about to go to Budapest for months to do a job. So I'm having a Peloton shipped in from Berlin because I'm hooked on the Peloton. Peloton was so popular in the pandemic and when something's that popular I'm always like, no thank you—generally whatever everybody's doing I've had great success doing something else. But my best friend was doing it, and I said let me check it out.

What I didn't realize about Peloton is that it comes with a coach, and invariably anybody who works out knows that if you have somebody there saying do one more, you're just always going to do a better workout.

I follow a few Peloton instructors on Instagram that I find hilarious.

I have to be very careful even about the woodworkers that I follow [on Instagram]. I could easily follow five Peloton instructors, but then that's a potential 10 or 15 minutes out of my day. I try to be careful to limit the amount of opportunities I have to engage because the world is so full of delightful fruit now—like you could just spend your whole day online looking at all these great things or engaging with all these great channels. I think it's important to curate those things so that I can keep saving time to be smoking meats out on the smoker.

You seem to be very conscious with your time if you're not on set.

Well, Megan and I love reading books. Right now, we're voraciously reading some fiction.

I'm reading a book called Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson—I think it's a few years old—it's a ripping good yarn. Megan is my fiction curator—she reads like crazy. And every third book she'll say, “you're gonna love this one.”

Then we also do jigsaw puzzles. We love doing jigsaw puzzles, and we love this exquisite company called Liberty Puzzles out of Boulder, Colorado. They're incredible works of art. We've learned that it's much better if we each have our own puzzle because Megan is like a machine. She does a puzzle three times faster than me, and that can stress you out if you'd like to work at a donkey’s pace. So she does her puzzle, or her three puzzles, and I do my one puzzle. But here's the hot tip: Listen to audiobooks while doing the jigsaw puzzle. There's something about the combination of the visual sequencing with the audio narrative that just shuts out the world so completely—it puts you in this bubble where no distraction can reach you. We just find it so incredibly gratifying.