Drinks

Can a bourbon taste like Wyoming? Gin like the Cali coast? Drink the answers in these ultra-local spirits.

Five boozes that use local ingredients for a signature taste.

Desert Door Texas Sotol Original

Produced from an agave-ish flowering shrub, sotol may not be as familiar as its tequila and mescal cousins, but it’s just as much a part of warm climes and traditional desert drinking. Distilled from wild-harvested West Texas flora, Desert Door sotol has a minerality that suggests a meeting of gin and tequila, but a finish as unique as the Texas Hill Country where it’s made. $40

Wyoming Whiskey Small Batch Bourbon Whiskey

With Bighorn Basin roots this premium bourbon uses corn, wheat and malted barley from local farms. The sine qua non is high-ph water from a nearby limestone aquifer, lending texture and taste that’s earned Wyoming Whiskey awards and comparisons to elite Kentucky brands. $45

Gray Whale Gin

The lineup of botanicals in this stylish bottle sounds like a foraging tour up California Highway 1. The recipe includes Big Sur juniper, Santa Cruz mint, Mendocino kelp, Sonoma fir and limes from the Baja Peninsula. It’s inspired by the 1,200-mile migratory journey of the gray whale. $40

Santa Fe Spirits Apple Brandy

From one of the top artisan distilleries in the Southwest, Santa Fe Spirits’ apple brandy is produced from heirloom apples at the distillery’s own orchard in a small farming community at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The result fuses the essence of New Mexican air, water and earth into premium nectar. $53

TX Straight Bourbon Whiskey

The mash bill of this bourbon from Fort Worth’s Firestone & Robertson includes Texas yellow dent corn, Texas soft red winter wheat, Texas water and a proprietary strain of Texas yeast derived from Texas pecans. The result? “Flavor made exclusively out of Texan ingredients that’s undeniably Texas,” say the proud

Texas makers. $50