The typical playbook for starting a whiskey distillery in the U.S. often involves sourcing whiskey to bottle while waiting for the own-make distillate to age. But Longmont, Colorado’s Dry Land Distillers has taken anything but the beaten path. After leaving the coffee business in the early 2010s, founder and master distiller Nels Wroe dove headfirst into the world of distilled spirits with no formal training. The mission? To produce spirits using unique ingredients from the American West, showcasing the land’s terroir.

“I'm from Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, so I felt strongly that if we were to tackle something in this craft space, we’d have to find crops that are appropriate to the place and are very true to Colorado and the American West,” Wroe says. “That sent us down the grain path because it gave us an opportunity to create spirits that mimic the wine world in terms of (using and reflecting the) terroir.”

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