Finally, a Whiskey for People Who Prefer Vodka

When David Perkins founded High West Distillery in Park City, Utah, in 2009, he knew it would be a couple of years before the company could introduce an original aged whiskey to market: Most straight whiskeys spend a minimum of two years in a cask before being bottled.

To bring in revenue in the meantime, Perkins relied on three tactics: mixing other distillers’ products into a unique blended whiskey (Rendezvous Rye); opening a restaurant to extend the brand name (the James Beard-nominated High West Saloon); and bottling two original products without aging them at all. High West’s “white whiskeys,” Silver Whiskey Western Oat and OMG Pure Rye, meet the requirements of a whiskey distinction only because they do a quick pass through some oak. “We have a 1-gallon barrel that we run a pipe into, so whiskey goes through, but it doesn’t stay there,” Perkins says.