Wyoming Whiskey, Inc.

Wyoming Whiskey, Inc. is a grain-to-glass distillery in Kirby, Wyoming, in the Big Horn Basin, and it was the first legal distillery in the state. The operation was conceived by fourth-generation Wyoming ranchers Brad and Kate Mead together with attorney David DeFazio, who set out to make a bourbon rooted entirely in Wyoming agriculture and water. The Sentinel Room carries the distillery's flagship, Wyoming Whiskey Small Batch Bourbon, in its Reserve Whiskey Library.

History & Heritage

The Meads and David DeFazio formed Wyoming Whiskey in 2006, and ceremonial production began on July 4, 2009, making it the first legal distillery in Wyoming. To build the recipe and the process, they brought in Steve Nally, a 33-year veteran of Maker's Mark and a Bourbon Hall of Fame master distiller, who established the mash bills and distillation methods for the early releases. The first product, Small Batch Bourbon, reached the market in 2012 after several years of aging.

Ownership shifted over the following decade. The Scottish spirits group Edrington, owner of The Macallan and Highland Park, first invested in 2018 with a 35 percent stake and increased that to an 80 percent majority in 2023. In June 2026 that arrangement reversed. WW Partners, LLC, a Wyoming-based investment group led by co-founder David DeFazio, acquired Edrington's 80 percent holding, returning the distillery to local control. As of July 2026, Wyoming Whiskey is majority-owned by WW Partners, LLC.

The Whiskey

Wyoming Whiskey distills, ages, and bottles on site in Kirby, running its own custom Vendome copper column still. The grain is non-GMO and grown in Wyoming, much of it sourced from farmers in Byron, and the water comes from the Madison Formation, a limestone aquifer that sits roughly a mile below the surface near Manderson.

Wyoming Whiskey Small Batch Bourbon, the expression carried at The Sentinel Room, uses a wheated mash bill of 68 percent corn, 20 percent wheat, and 12 percent malted barley. It is bottled at 88 proof, a nod to Wyoming's status as the 44th state, and carries no age statement while running to a minimum of roughly five years. Beyond the Small Batch, the distillery's lineup includes Double Cask, a straight bourbon finished in former sherry casks, and Outryder, a 100-proof American whiskey that blends two rye-forward mash bills. Single-barrel and barrel-strength bourbons and periodic limited editions round out the range.

Why It Matters

Wyoming Whiskey established distilling as a legal industry in a state that had none, and it did so with a strict local sourcing model: Wyoming grain, Wyoming water, and full production under one roof rather than sourced whiskey bottled under a house label. Its work has been recognized in competition, including a silver medal for the Small Batch at the 2015 Denver International Spirits Competition and, more recently, a World Whiskies Awards win for its Buffalo Bill Cody release. The 2026 return to Wyoming ownership underlines the founders' original intent to keep the operation tied to its home ground. For a drinker working through The Sentinel Room's Reserve Whiskey Library, the Small Batch Bourbon offers a wheated, soft-grained profile shaped by high-elevation aging in the Big Horn Basin, a point of contrast to the Kentucky wheated bourbons it is often measured against.