Wonderbird Spirits: A Mississippi Hidden Gin
On 20 lush acres near Oxford, Mississippi, three ex-corporate guys have decided to pour everything they have into "field to bottle" gin. Pull up a seat, take a sip, and learn all about the wonder of Wonderbird Spirits.
Wonderbird Spirits goes against the grain of most distilleries — even those with grain-to-glass, artisan, and small-batch monikers. Rob Forster, Tom Alexander, and Chand Harlow departed from their varied corporate backgrounds to build something world-class in rural Mississippi. From their botanical sourcing to their tasting experiences, meet the dynamic trio shaking up the world of fine spirits.
Called to Mississippi: Wonderbird’s Origins
Originally from Covington, Louisiana, Rob Forster spent most of his career practicing law in Manhattan and Los Angeles. “I was leaving a lot of myself on the table. My love of people and storytelling. My creative impulse.”
Rob often traveled to Oxford to visit his late father — an Ole Miss Law alum who spent his final 12 years there — and Rob felt a strong pull to start over in Oxford with his young family. He followed the call, and ultimately, he convinced his UVA roommate and fellow traveler-epicure Tom to uproot from Austin, TX, and do the same.
“We’d had these half-hearted conversations about starting a distillery for about a decade,” Rob recalls. Two of the Wonderbird three made the leap. Then, enter Chand, a younger Mississippi native with a longtime dream of starting a grain-to-glass gin distillery. They had a team and a plan. Time to learn how to make gin.
Why gin?
Put simply, they love it. “We really esteem gin and its place in classic cocktail culture,” Rob says. “From the creative side, once you’ve introduced that fore note of juniper, the creative latitude is limitless. We use some unusual botanicals like bay leaf and rosemary and forage two of our 10 botanicals from this land,” Rob says, proud of this terroir stamp on his bottles.
What “Grain-to-Glass” Means to Wonderbird Spirits
“We visited probably 20 distillers of all stripes,” Rob says. “They’d all say, ‘I bet you’re thinking about being grain-to-glass, right?‘ and we would say, stupidly, ‘Yes, that’s right.’ And they would say, ‘Don’t be stupid!'” Meaning, most folks make gin starting with neutral grain spirit purchased in bulk from Indiana or Nebraska. But that wasn’t in the cards for Wonderbird.
“There is nothing wrong with doing that. So many beautiful gins are made that way,” says Rob. “But we wanted to create this from the ground.”
Being in a legendary agricultural region meant the team scoured Mississippi for something to ferment on to create their base alcohol. They tried many types of corn and even considered the sweet potatoes grown on a large scale the county over. Then they heard about a culinary rice farm in the Mississippi Delta called Two Brooks, whose five varietals are in kitchens from New Orleans to Memphis to Birmingham.
“Their jasmine rice started yielding this super creamy, clean, aromatic distillate that caught our attention,” Rob says. “So we had to learn to make gin and sake. It took us about two years stem to stern to do both of those things.”
61 Iterations Later, a Signature Expression
This sake-adjacent base alcohol was a canvas on which to paint the botanical notes. In developing their first gin, they spent months looking for the right juniper before landing on one from Southern Italy.
“We had no distillation experience before getting into this. The team decided to make their gin with individual micro distillations of each of our botanicals,” Rob explains. “This is not a novel concept in distillation, but it requires a lot more labor. We yield those beautiful, perfect parts and then blend them after the fact. Monkey 47 is the only other gin in the world that lays claim to that level of labor intensiveness.”
Bottling The Magnolia State
Wonderbird got immediate distribution and fostered relationships in four states, a key to the success of a young brand in a heavily red-taped industry. Then COVID-19 happened. During a lockdown walk, Robert broke a branch off a magnolia tree on Ole Miss’s campus.
“I wondered if I could take the unmistakable, unforgettable essence of Mississippi magnolia and put it in a bottle,” Rob says. “No one’s ever done that before. Fresh blossoms from people’s trees are distilled same-day, and the fresh white petals deliver a beautiful, round, buttery note,” Rob says of No. 97.
Folding Wonder into the Name and Design
Many people comment on the Wonderbird packaging and aesthetic. “We wanted our design to echo something deeply within the three of us, ” Rob says. Where so many liquor brands are doing this bright, shiny object tactic, Wonderbird sought to counter-program that impulse and go “linear, graceful, and timeless.” They were drawn to the Native American symbology from North Mississippi and ended up separately gravitating toward migratory birds without realizing it.
What Does “Small Batch” Mean to Wonderbird?
Wonderbird currently makes a batch and a half to two batches a month. “That’s 600 bottles. That’s not a ton of gin,” Rob admits. They are, however, on the heels of a monster expansion. “We’re making two batches a month, but we’re four months into being able to make 10 times that.” They have the facility. They’ve proven they can scale without sacrificing quality. And they’ve even garnered some awards, building a brand and a reputation. “It’s time to go find those markets and earn those fans,” Rob adds.
Wonderbird’s Distillery and Tasting Room
When people come to Oxford and have a beautiful meal on the square, shop at Square Books, and visit William Faulkner’s place, Rob hopes Wonderbird becomes the obvious next stop. “We want people to say, ‘Oh, dude! You have to go out to Wonderbird. It’s this grain-to-glass rice-based gin distillery 12 minutes from here!’ And we can welcome people with this beautiful experience like you’d get at a California winery,” Rob adds.
Currently, the sparse yet stunning distillery hosts by-appointment tastings and tours. And they recently launched a Thursday night cocktail service that’s three hours long, ten people max, and almost “surgical” in its execution, according to Rob. A growing line-up of tastings, concerts, and community events are on the horizon.
“Oxford is filled with dynamic, cool, creative people here who have come from all over the country, and in some cases the world, because there’s something in the water here,” Rob adds. “It’s the food and bev scene. But it’s also the music scene. The art scene. We’re proud to be here. And we’re earning our way into the community so that they see us as a mainstay.”
New Wonderbird Expression Landing Soon
Rob spoke to us in the midst of developing their third recipe: a simpler gin that may come in at a slightly lower price point. “I’ll go in there in a minute and keep going with it,” he says at the end of the interview. “All three of us are doing the ‘hive mind’ thing right now. It’s not a paint-by-number situation. It’s all through exploration.”
The Wonderbird trio has made something world-class in a place no one would expect. One sip and you’ll taste that the Magnolia State, and the whole dang South, is better for it.
**********
This article was made possible by Visit Mississippi.
For more fabulous Southern brands and destinations, follow us on Pinterest!
Zoe Yarborough
Zoe is a StyleBlueprint freelance writer, Charlotte native, Washington & Lee graduate, and Nashville transplant since 2012. She teaches Pilates, helps manage recording artists, and likes to "research" Germantown's food scene.
