High West

So, as I said before, the state of Utah is not the first place one would think of as a prime location for a distillery, but it was here, during 2006, in an old livery stable and garage on Park Street that former biochemist David Perkins and his wife Jane set up the first legal distillery in Utah since the repeal of prohibition. The irony is that David wasn’t that into whiskey. He had the odd bottle in his cupboard and would enjoy a dram every now and then, but by his own reckoning, he wasn’t a connoisseur. However, it was during a visit to Makers Mark that he realised that distilling whisky was no different to producing ethanol for the biochemical industry, apart from whiskey tasted better and was probably a whole lot more fun to produce!

They were already planning on moving to Utah as David is a keen skier and Utah is very much a ski city. And skiers drink whisky. And there wasn’t a distillery in Utah. And with the help of Greg Sheriff, the father of brewing in Utah, he navigated the red tape, pitched his idea to authorities. And the rest, as they say, is history. Over the course of the next ten years, he built High West into one of the most recognized and well-regarded brands in the country, which solicited the opening of larger distillery in Wanship, Utah, around 25 minutes’ drive from Park Street and finally the purchase of the company by Constellation Brands in 2016.

One of the keys to the distillery’s success was borne out of necessity. In order to keep the cash flowing they needed to do more than just rely on the turnover of their onsite restaurant and the sale of a few bottles of Vodka, they needed to get a whisky out into the market, but maturing your own spirit takes time, so he was advised to buy whisky and sell it as his own. This way of getting a product to market is not unheard of, even back in 2006, in essence anyone can purchase some bulk spirit and bottle it under their own label, but it raises all sorts of issues with regards to authenticity and transparency, which David wanted to avoid. His answer, which he believed at the time was innovative, but in reality, harks back to the foundation of the Scottish whisky industry was to blend.

The innovative part and possibly the most riskiest part, was the choice of raw materials for this blend. He was advised to purchase rye whiskies, even though rye wasn’t anywhere near as popular then as it is now. His first release was called Rendezvous Rye, which was a blend of 6 year old Rye (95% Rye/ 5% Barley) and 16 year old Rye (53% Rye/ 37% Corn) both probably sourced from Lawrenceberg Indiana Distillers (owned by MGP), which received rave reviews from press and set the ball rolling. The most important part was that David was open about the source of the components and certainly didn’t attempt to pass it off as his own spirit. The plan was always to integrate some High West distilled rye into the blend when the spirit was ready and that is exactly what he did, subsequently replacing the 53% Rye mash spirit.

Possibly their most innovative product is the Campfire Whisky, which currently is a blend of sourced straight Rye and Bourbon, blended with their own Rye Spirit and a blended peated malt whisky from Scotland. The folklore surrounding this whiskey is that David and Jane were holidaying on Isla and had a desert that had been liberally doused in honey and a simple syrup made from a reduced peated malt whisky and sugar. This led David to experiment with blending Rye, Bourbon and peated malt together in order to replicate this experience and even if it sounds like an odd combination, I can tell you that it works a treat.