Discovery Club July 2025: Backwards Distilling

It’s officially time to announce the Lost Lantern Discovery Club release for July 2025! This month’s single cask is a 6-year-old Wyoming straight bourbon whiskey from Backwards Distilling Co. in Mills, Wyoming, just outside of the city of Casper in central Wyoming.

As I alluded to in our last newsletter, this whiskey and this distillery are the perfect example of what the Lost Lantern Discovery Club is all about (if you’re not familiar, read more about the club and sign up here!). Here’s the short rundown of why, before we get into all the details:

• It comes from a distillery we’ve never worked with before
• It comes from a state we’ve never sourced from before 
• Their whiskey is very hard to find outside of Wyoming
• It’s a whiskey that truly reflects its climate 
• I had never even tried their whiskey myself until I visited! 
• It’s safe to say it’s a little off the beaten path
• And most of all, the whiskey is absolutely wonderful – rich, bold, intense, and full of flavor

I want to say a little bit more about that fifth bullet point, that I had never tried this whiskey myself until I visited the distillery. Because that’s actually pretty foundational to what I want the Discovery Club to be. 

The Discovery Club isn’t just about me sharing whiskies that folks who are in-the-know already know and love. It’s about finding true hidden gems and rising stars. And that’s why I’m on this journey of discovery with all of you. Granted, I have a head start: I’m a former professional whiskey journalist and have now been sourcing whiskies from all across the country for Lost Lantern for five years. That means I know and have tried whiskies from hundreds of distilleries across the United States. 

But there are more than 3,000 distilleries in the United States now. There is always more to discover. And some of those places are truly spectacular.

There is one little irony here, however. Which is that, although I had never tried Backwards’ whiskey before I visited, I knew one of the owners of the distillery very well. And that’s because everyone in the craft spirits industry does: Amber Pollock, one of the cofounders of Backwards, has long been a leader in the industry, most recently as Vice President of the American Craft Spirits Association (full disclosure: I’m on the board as well). She is a very familiar face at all the industry conferences, and most of our distillery partners know about Backwards as well for the same reason.

But still… barely any of us have tried their whiskey. 

The Road to Backwards Distilling Co. 

Just about this time last year, I flew to Fargo, North Dakota to visit Far North Spirits in northern Minnesota, knowing we needed to visit them and recruit them for our Estate Collection. But I wasn’t going to go all that way and visit just one distillery. I made a whole trip out of it, one that ended up taking me to distilleries in five states: Minnesota, both Dakotas, Nebraska, and Wyoming.

So I naturally reached out to Amber beforehand and asked if there were any distilleries in Wyoming, besides the already well-known Wyoming Whiskey, that I should visit. And I said I wanted to visit Backwards too, of course, even though they didn’t have much whiskey. 

She quickly corrected me: Oh, we have whiskey. We just don’t release it very often.   

I put some serious miles on rental cars when I go on a sourcing trip. This was a particularly long one: these western states are big, and everything is very spread out. I hit roughly a dozen distilleries on this trip, and Backwards was actually the second-to-last on the trip, just before I gave myself a rare weekend off on a roadtrip to visit some National Parks and Monuments. 

I mean, cut me some slack. I’m not going to go all the way to Wyoming and not go to Devil’s Tower! 

Introducing Backwards Distilling Co.

Backwards Distilling Co. was founded in 2014 by the Pollock family—Amber, Bill, Kathy, and Chad—who shared a vision of building a family business that reflects their passions for food, drink, creativity, and the arts. And one thing they knew from the beginning was that they didn’t want to keep doing exactly the same things over and over again. Backwards would always be a place of constant evolution: traditional distillation techniques, yet with room for playful and creative experimentation. 

I already mentioned that I didn’t know Backwards for their whiskey… but I was very familiar with their white spirits, especially their two flagships: Ringleader vodka and Contortionist gin (the names, along with Swordswallower rum, clearly illustrate the playful circus theme). The one whiskey they generally have on the market is an American whiskey, a blend of their own bourbon and wheat whiskey that has a flavor profile somewhere in between a bourbon and Canadian whiskey. It’s an impressive whiskey, and perfect for their home market of Wyoming, where Canadian whiskey is king and most drinkers aren’t used to high-proof spirits.

The core spirits at Backwards have always been made at least partially with cocktails in mind… even though, when the distillery first opened in 2014, most bars in Wyoming didn’t even have cocktail menus yet. The distillery led by example, and their tasting room is a full-fledged, serious, and inventive cocktail bar–certainly the best in Casper and probably one of the best in the eastern half of Wyoming. They are also opening a second tasting room soon in Laramie, Wyoming. 

The reason I didn’t know much about Backwards’ whiskey is threefold: first, they don’t make a lot. Second, their American whiskey only makes it to Colorado and Wyoming, and all their other whiskey is Wyoming-only. And third, everything except the American whiskey is a one-off, limited release: experimental barrels, rarely to be repeated and not likely to stick around long (their latest release is a barrel proof bourbon single cask finished in an Islay Scotch cask). The good news for locals, and the bad news for us, is that these limited releases are only available in Wyoming. 

Of course, that’s where we come in. 

What Wyoming Does To Whiskey

Now let’s talk about the whiskey itself. The Lost Lantern July 2025 Discovery Club release is a single cask of Backwards Distilling Wyoming straight bourbon whiskey. It is 6 years old, and was aged in a new American oak char 3 cask from Kelvin cooperage. It was made from 71% corn and 29% wheat. It is not only our first release from Wyoming, it is the first cask strength release of Backwards’ whiskey outside of Wyoming–ever. 

What excites me so much about this whiskey is how dense it is. Bottled at its natural cask strength of 127.9 proof, this is a powerful whiskey, with the concentration of flavor you usually see only in hazmats. In fact, even though it is not hazmat, it reminds me a lot of our hazmat Corbin Cash California bourbons and our Boulder Colorado bourbons, all of them from hot, dry climates that lead to true density of flavor and powerful oak. 

This is also the first wheated bourbon we’ve done from any of the Rocky Mountain/Great Basin states, and it’s a compelling combination: the softness of wheat balances with the intensity of the oak to make a truly rounded whiskey. 

I’m intrigued to explore the effects of this climate more deeply, and this release is part of that. The distilleries we’ve worked with in the broader region–especially Boulder Spirits, Frey Ranch, and now Backwards–all exhibit some features in common. And although Backwards is not directly adjacent to a mountain range like Boulder is, it’s still at high-elevation: over 5,000 feet, roughly the same as Denver and higher than Frey Ranch. Of course, Wyoming is colder than those other states. Like Vermont, it’s winter for about half of the year. Like Colorado, when it isn’t winter, it tends to be dry and hot. Whiskies go up in proof rapidly here, the water evaporating out of the barrel and leaving an intensely concentrated whiskey behind. 

I hope you think about all this when you taste the Backwards cask. I’d be very interested to hear if you also see some common features with other Rocky Mountain/Great Basin whiskies. And beyond that, I hope you enjoy this special taste of Wyoming, the first chance to try Backwards’ bourbon outside of getting it yourself from Wyoming. 

As always, this month’s release will start shipping out to members on the 25th. I can’t wait to hear what you think! And if you aren’t in the Discovery Club yet, sign up now!