Photos provided by Suncliffe Gin and Whiskey Del Bac

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Thirty years ago, boutique wineries and craft breweries were taking root in Arizona. Cider houses, a boutique sake brewery and even a malt house followed. Today, it is a logical progression to see a new generation of artisan distilleries blossom.

In keeping with a trend in artisanal foods and beverages to capture terroir, Whiskey Del Bac and Suncliffe Gin are crafting unique spirits with distinctive desert character.

Commonly associated with wine, honey, cheese or coffee, terroir refers to specific nuances in flavor profiles imparted from the soil, water, sun, microclimate and micro-organisms of the area where a food or beverage is grown or produced.

Terroir’s ability to imbue products with subtle distinctions of location is the reason for the labeling of protected products such as Champagne, Parmesan cheese, Burgundy wine or Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee.

While the concept is not commonly applied to distilled spirits, distillation nonetheless can capture the properties of a particular terroir, which are further enhanced by various means during the ageing and finishing processes. Local conditions can also affect both the distilling process and the attributes of a spirit.  

A recent visit with Ryan Lawrence of Suncliffe Gin, and Mark Vierthaler of Whiskey Del Bac—two accomplished Arizona distillers—gave me a whole new perspective on terroir. They produce different spirits but share a passion for the desert.

Love Letters to the Sonoran Desert

If the mystical landscape of Sedona can be bottled, Suncliffe Gin has done it.

While hiking around the area, friends Ryan Lawrence, Tom Giddings and Clare Byrne noticed the abundance and variety of juniper trees. The Red Rock landscape spoke to them, and they were inspired to establish Suncliffe Gin, a cutting-edge craft distillery based in Tucson.

Juniper berries are the only required ingredient for a spirit to be called gin. Most gins use a common juniper berry sourced mainly from Europe, providing the classic gin flavor.

Sedona boasts three native juniper species, and Suncliffe incorporates them all: One-seed, Shaggy and Alligator, to use their common names.

“Gin is super open-ended. You can use whatever you want as long as there’s juniper in it, and it’s 40% [alcohol],” says Lawrence. “We have a lot of choices we can make to express ourselves to get the terroir. We support the juniper with other botanicals that we wild harvest from the region.”

He continues, “There’s Ponderosa pine bark, which lends a piney-butterscotch note to the gin; and because I think that gin has a spikiness to it, the bark smooths the gin out. The bark is my favorite thing. We also use manzanita berries that have a zesty-apple fruit flavor—like a hard, apple candy.”

And then there is elderflower_—a signature ingredient in a French gimlet gin cocktail, which adds a sweet, floral note. Each season the flowers are wild harvested and made into a tincture used to round out the other botanicals. This is Suncliffe’s “Classic” gin flavor profile.

Achieving this finesse calls for intricate calibration. The team spent an entire year to get the proportions just right: balancing the manzanita with the Ponderosa and elderflower on the backbone of the three juniper berries. The result is a crisp, complex and full flavor with a smooth finish.

Another distinction is, while most gins are wheat- or barley-based, Suncliffe is based on corn.

Ryan says the corn adds a certain smoothness, “a more opulent and silky texture.” The result is a “nuanced, clean palate; it’s perfect for sipping” and for an extensive variety of cocktails too.

Gin afficionados might be interested to know that Suncliffe gin is vapor-infused. This is an alternative distilling technique. Instead of macerating the ingredients in the still, the botanicals are placed in baskets suspended over the steaming liquid, their essence captured by the rising vapors, and passed along to the condenser. It is a more labor intensive and meticulous process for the distiller, but yields superior results for delicate botanical compounds, along with a brighter finish.

Because gin is most commonly consumed in warm weather—think of gin and tonics on a hot summer evening—sales usually drop in the winter. In the cold season, Ryan says, people are more likely to drink whiskey or other heavier spirits.

So, Sutcliffe came up with the idea of a winter gin, which they call “Solstice.” Introduced in 2021, it is crafted specifically for cold-weather consumption.

After distillation, it rests in whiskey barrels acquired from Whiskey Del Bac: “It wears a whiskey jacket,” Lawrence says. This lends the gin a golden hue along with the warm notes of whiskey. It is easy to sip neat and enjoy the layers of nuance and warmth.

Expanding their exploration of terroir, Suncliffe’s latest offering is Cultivaro Amaro, released in spring of 2025.

Amari (amaro means bitter) are Italian herbal liqueurs enjoyed as a digestif. They originated in Medieval monasteries and 19^th-century pharmacies as medicinal concoctions that preserve in alcohol the herbal essences of a particular place.

Their variety is as numerous as the people who make them. They can be made with herbs, roots, seeds, spices and fruit peels, macerated in an alcohol base (which can be wine, brandy or a neutral spirit). Whether bottled or cask-aged, amari tend to be bittersweet and complex. Similar liqueurs are produced throughout Europe. Some well-known labels include Amaro Nonino, Averna Amaro Sicilian, Cynar, Fernet Branca and Montenegro.

Like most amari, the recipe is a guarded secret, but the ingredients are not. Cultivaro Amaro is a corn-based spirit infused with citrus, dates and pecans. The accents of Ponderosa bark, roses, grilled nopales and spearmint yield a complex infusion that is citrusy, silky and slightly bitter. It is a delicious, rich ode to the Sonoran Desert.

Cultivar Amaro is available in select restaurants, boutique bars and independent specialty stores. It will be stocked at Arizona Total Wine stores this summer.

A full list of bars, restaurants and retailers can be found at suncliffegin.com.

Next time you have a longing for the Red Rocks of Sedona, treat yourself to a Suncliffe cocktail.

Or, make your own:

Prickly Pear Shrub

5–6 medium-large, fresh prickly pear tunas

1⅔ cups sugar

1 cup apple cider vinegar

Holding them with tongs and using a sturdy brush, scrub the tunasclean under cold running water. Avoid touching the fruits.

Over medium-low gas flame and turning frequently, burn off thorns and tiny glochids without burning the fruit’s skin.

Rough-chop the tunas. Place all ingredients into blender; blend until smooth.

Strain liquid through double-layered cheesecloth-lined sieve into clean glass jar.

Rest for 4–6 days in refrigerator. Use for cocktails or mix to taste with lemonade or sparkling water for a refreshing summer beverage.

Yield: 2½ cups

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Whiskey Del Bac

Desert Terroir from the Still

It was a quiet day at Whiskey Del Bac distillery. The production floor was not in operation, but the whiskey was quietly doing its work in a large array of stainless-steel tanks, copper stills and high stacks of small, oak barrels.

Whiskey Del Bac is a product of Hamilton Distillery Group, founded in Tucson in 2011 by Steven Paul and his daughter Amanda.

They had an idea that instead of peat, a foundational flavor component of single-malt whiskeys from Scotland and Ireland, they might make a desert whiskey with mesquite.

“Mesquited, not peated,” as they say at Whiskey Del Bac. What could better represent Southwestern desert terroir than mesquite smoke?

Thus began an exciting, creative journey leading to a distinctive Southwestern whiskey and notable success.

I was greeted by Master Distiller and Blender Mark Vierthaler, along with two friendly resident house cats.

Mark started here in 2012. After a winding journey as a journalist, PR and marketing agent, and stint heading a craft cocktail venture, Mark started in the whiskey business when he joined some neighboring Kansas wheat farmers who founded Boot Hill Distillery.

While most whiskey comes from cool, damp climates such as Scotland, Ireland, Kentucky or even Kansas and Japan, Whiskey Del Bac is a unique desert outlier. In Arizona, there are challenges to face that require both intuition and expertise as a chemist.

“Making whiskey in Arizona is way different than making whiskey in Kentucky or Scotland or Ireland,” says Vierthaler.

“We are incredibly hot and incredibly dry, and we’ve taken those challenges and turned them into opportunities—and that is the reason Whiskey Del Bac tastes the way it does. We lean into challenges across the entire production from the fermentation to the distillation to the ageing. We focus on trying to make this a distinctly desert whiskey.”

Adapting to the warm temperatures of the desert, Whiskey Del Bac uses a special heat-tolerant yeast to ferment the in-house-malted barley.

“The fermentation takes place with temperatures of 80–85°F, producing interesting ester profiles—tropical notes like mango and pineapple, which interact with the wood and create notes of dark chocolate and stone fruits. If we introduced climate control, we wouldn’t get the characteristics of this hot-weather ageing.”

The ageing, which takes place in small, new American White Oak barrels, is relatively short—15 months for the three flagship whiskeys: Classic, Dorado and Sentinel Rye.

“By using the smaller quarter-keg casks there is more volume of whiskey coming into contact with the wood, getting more oak influence on the whiskey in a short period of time. This speeds the ageing time and diminishes the loss to evaporation. In cooler climates the loss averages 5–6%, but in the desert the loss can be as much as 15%.” (This loss is known poetically in the distiller’s world as “the angels’ share” because the loss in vapor is shared with the angels.)

Frontera, Ode to Islay and Normandie—special releases aged from two to four years—feature cask-finished whiskies using vessels that had previously aged different kinds of spirits. After the ageing in oak, “the whiskey is laid in a barrel from another wine or spirit, such as Calvados, Rhum Agricole or sherry—subtle complexities are introduced.”

Their Frontera of 2025 was very lightly smoked then rested in Pedro Jimenez sherry casks; it garnered a 93-point rating by Whiskey Advocate. Enthusiastically received at the release party, it was also runner-up for Best in Show at the Las Vegas Global Spirit Awards.

Special house releases called Distiller’s Cut are unique blends, aged two to four years in a variety of select finishing barrels. They are very small releases—only 700 bottles—that come out three times a year, in March, July and October. The release parties are eagerly anticipated events at the distillery. Each release is unique, and as Vierthaler says, “celebrates a brief moment in time.”

Del Bac customers are enthusiastic about the distinctive smokey character that mesquite lends to the whiskeys, and Vierthaler expects to add more mesquite smoke to his new recipes. “Smokiness is like caramelizing the whiskey,” he says.

Del Bac whiskeys have earned many awards and enjoy popularity in 25 states for their bold, unique flavors.

From their three Flagship retail whiskeys to the special releases and Distiller’s Cuts, there is a rich assortment to explore and enjoy. To truly appreciate the tapestry of variations in these artful spirits, it is best to visit the distillery for a tasting.

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For information about tastings and all their whiskeys, go to WhiskeyDelBac.com.