Wyoming Whiskey’s David DeFazio never originally intended to get involved in the bourbon-making business.
An attorney by trade, the New York native had opened his own legal practice in Jackson, Wyoming, drawn to The Equality State by his love of the outdoors.
It was here DeFazio met fellow attorneys Brad and Kate Mead in 2006 and since then his career has taken a decidedly different turn.
Challenged with putting Wyoming on the whiskey map alongside the bourbons of Kentucky and Tennessee, the award-winning Wyoming Whiskey was born, and the trio hasn't looked back since.
How Wyoming Whiskey Was Born in Sagebrush Country
The Meads wanted to get into the whiskey business, and they picked their friend DeFazio to lead the charge. But none of them had any experience in distilling bourbon.
Whilst bourbon and the outdoors are an age-old, beautiful Wyoming wasn’t exactly a hotbed of whiskey production. This was sagebrush country, after all, and not the wooded hills of Kentucky or Tennessee.
DeFazio wasn’t fazed, however, and he took the Meads’ offer as a challenge he couldn’t turn down.
“I had no formal training in making alcohol, but I had a lot of training in drinking alcohol,” he says. “So yeah, the challenge was the biggest part of it.”
Over the next few years, the other parts fell into place and a distillery was built in the small town of Kirby, right in the heart of the Big Horn Basin. With a population of less than 100, Kirby is a typical Western town surrounded by sagebrush plains and distant mountains.
Today, it’s home to Wyoming’s first distillery, where the extreme climate produces barrels of small-batch whiskey through a maturation process vastly different from Kentucky and Tennessee.
Before Wyoming Whiskey released its first bourbon on December 1, 2019, there was a lot of planning and coordination just to get the distillery built and operating. And that’s where DeFazio excelled.
The Wyoming Whiskey Difference: People, Land, and a Mile-Deep Aquafier
First up was finding someone to oversee the spirit-making process, and DeFazio convinced retired Maker’s Mark Master Distiller Steve Nally to leave Kentucky to make bourbon in Wyoming.
“We were really lucky because he brought tons of institutional knowledge to help build a strong foundation,” DeFazio says.
But there was more work to do. To make whiskey, they needed grain and water, and to be true to the name, everything had to be sourced in Wyoming.
Fortunately, the Big Horn Basin is a region of Wyoming that’s ideal for grain production, and local farmers were enlisted to provide select strains of non-GMO corn, wheat, barley and rye.
Since the water in the Kirby area is high in sulfur, DeFazio had to find another source.
Hauling freshwater from the Mead’s ranch in Jackson was cost-prohibitive, and the option of using a reverse osmosis system to remove the sulfur just wasn’t feasible.
Turns out, the solution was found deep in the ground.
Just before the stills were ready to fire up, Nally called DeFazio and said he found a water source—a mile-deep limestone aquifer in the nearby town of Manderson.
The limestone water hadn’t seen the light of day since the Bronze Age, and it was pure as could be.
READ MORE: Five Top Cigar & Whiskey, Or Bourbon, Or Scotch Pairings
Wyoming Whiskey's Barrel Aging Process and Flavor Range
With everything in place, it wasn’t long before Wyoming Whiskey had charred oak barrels filled with aging bourbon. And that’s when the whiskey literally began to live up to its name.
DeFazio says Wyoming’s climate—super hot in the summer and extremely cold in the winter—is great for aging whiskey. The wild temperature swings, especially in the summer, produce a whiskey that embodies Wyoming.
“What defines Wyoming Whiskey is where it’s from and the influences that help form it,” he says. “The maturation environment is way different than anywhere else in the country.”
For a relatively young distillery, the variety and range of flavors created in the aged barrels is impressive.
It ranges from the spice, vanilla crème and caramel palate found in Wyoming Whiskey’s traditional small batch bourbon, to the hints of candied orange peel in its Double Cask.
And then there’s Outryder, a true nonconformist of the brand’s lineup as the only one that uses rye, but has such a unique taste that it’s not considered a true rye whiskey. What they all have in common, however, is the place where they’re made.
“Because of the way that we make Wyoming Whiskey, I can say without any hesitation that it is truly Wyoming in a bottle,” DeFazio says.
“Somebody’s out here, and they just had a day on the water, on the slopes or they just hiked. And they’re going to sit down at the end of the day and want to have something that’s the providence of Wyoming. That’s what Wyoming Whiskey offers.”
Wyoming Whiskey and National Parks: Conservation at the Heart of the Brand
Wyoming Whiskey also gives back, and they do so with a focus on conservation and the outdoors.
Each year since 2021, Wyoming Whiskey has released a National Parks Series limited edition bourbon that celebrates and supports the West’s great outdoor spaces, such as the Teton Range and Yellowstone National Park.
In honor of Yellowstone’s 150th anniversary in 2022, Wyoming Whiskey donated $150,000 to Yellowstone Forever, and they do something similar for every park that is featured in the special edition.
For DeFazio, producing a special whiskey that not only pays homage to such natural places but also helps support them really hits home.
“I have spent a lot of time in Grand Teton skiing. I’ve fished the Snake River and other spring creeks up there,” he says.
“I fish up in Yellowstone a ton. For me personally, it was very important that we honor these parks.”
Just like it’s important for Wyoming Whiskey to be authentic to the state where it’s made, deep in the sagebrush country surrounding the town of Kirby.
Wyoming Whiskey Co-Founder David DeFazio's Perfect End-of-Day Drink
The co-founder of Wyoming Whiskey has never been one to go with the flow, especially when it comes to the bourbon business.
But he is an avid enthusiast of any outdoor pursuit his state offers, and there’s a lot.
Skiing, fly fishing, hiking, whitewater rafting—if it can be done in Wyoming, DeFazio is game. But at the end of the day, his drink of choice isn’t limited to one thing in particular.
It’s actually two. And neither is a whiskey cocktail.
“My go-to Wyoming whiskey drink is a Coors and a neat pour of Outryder (Wyoming Whiskey’s only rye bourbon). For me, that is just perfect,” he says.
“Let me sip on my whiskey and sip on my beer, and I love that. That, to me, is the perfect drink, even though it’s two.”
For special, more formal occasions, DeFazio gravitates toward Wyoming Whiskey’s Single Barrel, a straight bourbon chosen from the rickhouse for its unique character and taste. At 96 proof, DeFazio says it’s the top 1% of all the barrels sampled each year:
“If I can find the right single barrel that matches my flavor profile with maybe one small cube of ice in there, that’s heaven, and that’s the way to go."
