Discovery Club February 2026: Day’s Defile Nor’wester Whiskey

Sometimes we seek out distilleries. Sometimes distilleries find us. 

And sometimes they fall into our lap.

That’s the case for the company and the whiskey we’re featuring in our February Discovery Club: Day’s Defile Nor’wester Whiskey, from Idaho.

And I’m guessing you haven’t heard of Day’s Defile before: they are the newest whiskey brand we’ve featured in the Discovery Club. In fact, their whiskey has been on the market less than a year, and it’s only available in Idaho.  

But the whiskey itself is actually the oldest we’ve featured in the club so far (and the highest proof, and probably the most unusual). How does that work? Well, I’ll explain. 

But for the moment, the details: the February release is an 8 year old straight triticale whiskey from Day’s Defile, bottled at a hazmat 144.1 proof. It is dense and powerful, but fresh and soft at the same time. And it has a bit of an unusual story behind it. Let’s get into that.

Day’s Defile and My Quest for Idaho Bourbon

I took a trip across Montana and Idaho in late 2024, on the hunt for (among other things) Rocky Mountain bourbon. Why? Well, you may recall that the first edition of Far-Flung Rye was regional: it came entirely from the Midwest. We were toying with the idea of a Mountain West blend that showcased the unique flavors we see from the region, and if we did it, we wanted to represent more of the states. We already knew there was great bourbon being made in Colorado and Wyoming (and Nevada, if that counts as a Rocky Mountain state). I had strong leads in Montana.

But Idaho? I wasn’t sure about that. The state does not have all that many distilleries, most of them are small, and some of them aren’t entirely clear about whether they’re making their whiskey themselves or sourcing it from Indiana or Kentucky. As always, I did my research. I looked up every distillery in Idaho, reached out to all the interesting ones, and set up visits.

Over the course of several days, I drove across basically the entire state, from the Montana border to Coeur d’Alene, down to McCall and the outskirts of Boise, and around the flatter southern part of the state. On that visit, one of them truly stood out: Warfield Distillery, one of my favorite out-of-nowhere discoveries since we started Lost Lantern. But, they make American single malt and gin, not bourbon (we released our first Warfield Idaho single malt cask in the fall; it’s spectacular).

I left Idaho very excited about Warfield and the Idaho single malt I didn’t even know I was looking for. But I was thwarted in my quest for a bourbon from that side of the Northern Rockies. I found a few places that made it, but the whiskey was either really young or they didn’t have much of it. Not the end of the world: we didn’t need to do a Rocky Mountain blend, and if we did, it didn’t have to have every state from the region in it.

But I still sort of wished I had found a bourbon that spoke to me like Warfield did, or like some of the Montana whiskies did.

And then, about four months later, I did.

Day’s Defile Nor’wester Whiskey: The Story

It started, as all great adventures do, with a LinkedIn post that the algorithm randomly recommended to me, from someone I shared many connections with but didn’t know directly.

That guy, named Harold Joyce, was based in Brooklyn… but he was announcing the launch of his new Idaho bourbon. A new brand called Day’s Defile, with a 4+ year age statement, aged in full size barrels, and including components north of seven years old, all distilled and aged in Idaho.  

It was basically exactly what I had hoped to find when I visited Idaho the previous fall. But back then, Day’s Defile was under deep cover: they hadn’t yet announced. But now was their time.

And funnily enough, I was going to be in Salt Lake City just two weeks later, and would only be two hours from Idaho Mercantile Distillers, the home of Day’s Defile. And Harold, the founder, was going to be there too, even though he’s based in Brooklyn. It was fortuitous. I reached out, we had a call, he knew us already, and we made a visit happen. 

I just had a few questions. Was the whiskey any good? And where the heck did it come from, and why didn’t I find it on my first trip to Idaho?

Since Day’s Defile is the February Discovery Club release, I clearly did end up thinking it was very good.

But where it came from is an entirely more complex story. 

Harold has been in the whiskey industry for over two decades, but he’s not a production guy; he comes from the marketing world, and has been a part of some truly amazing whiskey brands that I have long admired, especially in the Scotch world (I am not entirely sure whether I can name names, but if you’re a Scotch lover, it’s safe to say they are Scotch brands you know and like). He has also long been affiliated with Idaho Mercantile Distillers and their 44 North vodka, the best known spirit from Idaho and a brand that has been around for almost two decades. 

A number of years ago, Harold and some of his partners decided that it was time to make a whiskey that was truly born of Idaho. But as they began to look into the project, something else fell into their lap, around the time of the pandemic.

One of the very few Idaho distilleries that was making Idaho straight bourbon was closing their doors. And they had a lot of whiskey, aging in full-size barrels, made from regional grain, and now with nowhere to go. Harold and his partners snapped it up: a source of whiskey that was made in Idaho and could be their bridge until their own distillery was up and running… and a whiskey that deserved a home.

And that’s what makes Day’s Defile something unique. For the first time for a Lost Lantern partner, Day’s Defile did not distill the whiskey that we sourced from them. They bought it from a closing distillery in their own state, and continue to showcase it after they’re gone. But at this point, Day’s Defile has had the whiskey much longer than the original distillery did: they’ve aged it an additional 5+ years, and in the process have created something truly special.

For us, transparency is always the name of the game. Harold and his team are quite open about where their whiskey came from and their plans; I already knew of the distillery that had originally made it, and in fact had reached out to them myself before learning they had closed. I knew it had solid provenance.

In some ways, this whiskey is a mirror image of the whiskies we’ve released from closed distilleries like Rich Grain Distilling and Stonecutter Spirits: those are whiskies we’ve sourced directly from closed or closing distilleries, and often aged for several more years in Vermont. This is a closed distillery’s whiskey sourced by someone else, aged for many more years in its home state, and then sourced by us.

Day’s Defile is now distilling whiskey too, and releasing the bourbon that at this point shows more of their own imprint than the original distillery’s. Is it a bit of an odd case? Yes, but I think this whiskey is exceptional and unusual enough to demand.

Now onto the whiskey!

February Discovery Club: Day’s Defile Triticale Whiskey

So I just made a lot of hullabaloo about how badly I wanted bourbon from Idaho, and I finally found it… but that’s not what we’re releasing. We did buy bourbon from Day’s Defile, and you’ll see it soon. But for the Discovery Club, what struck us most was actually their triticale whiskey.

Triticale (which rhymes with “city daily” is not a common grain, at least not for whiskey. In fact, this is the first whiskey we’ve released made primarily with a grain that isn’t corn, barley, wheat, or rye. 

Triticale is a grain dating back to the 19th century, created by deliberately crossing wheat and rye. Initial variants were sterile, so it wasn’t viable as a commercial crop until the 1970s, and is still quite rare today. If you’re a plant geek, I recommend reading more about it.

If you’re mostly just a whiskey geek, let’s cut to the chase: a triticale whiskey, done well, embodies the best aspects of both rye and wheat in whiskey. And that makes sense, since it is literally a hybrid of both.

The Day’s Defile triticale whiskey, the February Discovery Club release, captures this beautifully. It manages to be both very spice-forward yet very soft. Made from 80% triticale and 20% malted barley, the profile is in some ways more like a rye whiskey than like a bourbon. After all, there’s no corn in the mashbill, and plenty ofa rye-wheat hybrid. The wheat brings the softness, and keeps the brashness in check. The soft, inviting nose has notes of apple-spiced oatmeal and dried grass. The palate is fresh yet hefty, with hints of green apple, vanilla, honey nut cereals, and toasty grain.

Aged for 8 years in a 53-gallon barrel and bottled at its natural cask strength of 144.1 proof, this is the biggest, oldest, and perhaps the wildest whiskey in the Discovery Club yet. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do… and enjoy this first introduction to Day’s Defile! You can expect to see them again soon. Very soon.