Idaho isn’t Kentucky – to that, Harold Joyce, co-founder of Day’s Defile bourbon readily admits. But despite the lengthy whiskey history, Idaho, he believes is a prime place to make America’s native spirit.

Located just east of Yellowstone Park, Day’s Defile Nor’Wester Whiskey is set to launch with a uniquely Idaho bourbon Joyce hopes will be appreciated by whiskey lovers from all over.

“We can’t do what Kentucky does, and we can’t beat Kentucky at what they do,” Joyce said. “But it’s nice to be able to put a bourbon on the shelves next to them and feel like you belong.”

Why does Joyce believe so strongly in the whiskey Day’s Defile is about to unleash? Natural resources. If Kentucky bourbon makers rely on a rich corn crop and limestone water, Idaho relies on the vast farms that surround the distillery and the Lost River, fed by melting snowcaps, for its basis of whiskey making.

Like they say in sales, it’s location, location, location. And all around Day’s Defile is just nature. And all the people involved in the brand, from Joyce himself to his business partner Ron Zier to head distiller Scott Proper, are Idaho people who love the land. They fish, they hunt, they disappear into nature, and that feeds the bourbon.

“That lifestyle and ethos is kind of everything behind our liquid,” Joyce said. “Not a drop of this whiskey is from outside the state. It is different because of its place.”

It’s also different, Joyce said, because there are no records he’s found showing that any bourbon has been legally made in Idaho since Prohibition. Day’s Defile is breaking a long-running dry streak.

Land and Climate

The brand name might be puzzling to someone not from Idaho, but it’s a fitting historic reference. The mountainous area naturally creates defiles, or narrow gorges between mountain ranges. And the former Day’s Defile in Lost River Range was named after a famed trapper named John Day.

The term “lost river” refers to the snowcap-fed rivers that disappear into volcanic basalt, starting a journey that filters the water before it eventually empties into the Snake River Aquifer, where the water to make Day’s Defile originates.

And even though the natural resources feed the product, Joyce said adaptation to the climate as it relates to making whiskey has been necessary. For one thing, Day’s Defile irrigates its barrels – literally, even bottling line employees will stop what they’re doing once a week to help water down barrels. Meanwhile, the decision was made to lower char levels and barrel proofs in order to combat the elevation and sometimes harsh climate.

Fortunately, Joyce and Zier have two decades of experience making spirits in Idaho, most notably 44 North vodka. Their plan has always pointed toward making bourbon, and now that this goal has been achieved, that experience is paying off.

“Necessity does a lot of things to a business — you have to adapt,” Joyce said. “I look at all our limitations, our locations, our resources and that’s the stuff that informs what we do. Some of it has turned out pretty well for us.”

Joyce said in the duo’s early days of making spirits, almost all of their products’ ingredients were imported to the U.S. They’ve adapted to create a uniquely Idaho bourbon product – the only one on the market.

“We finally got ourselves in a position where we can execute in no other place but Idaho,” Joyce said.

It’s a point of pride, given that’s where they live, and these are the places that surround them – the mountains, the rivers, the farms. Joyce said their goal all along was to reflect this in Day’s Defile bourbon. 

“It’s a totally different place to make whiskey, but it makes sense to make whiskey because of the agriculture,” Joyce said. “We’re so proud of what we’ve been able to produce. It’s something people in Idaho, we believe, can truly be proud of. It starts the conversation of, ‘What does Idaho have to say about American whiskey?’ We want to be one of the primary voices.”

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