CASPER — On a weekend night in December, the tasting room at Casper’s Backwards Distilling Co. is an aromatic potpourri of high delight.
The scent of dark chocolate, caramel and candied pecan waft down the bar and collide with the bright smell of grapefruit. It’s the result of being “unordinary,” as the bar puts it, for a one-night-only paloma featuring a dozen creative cocktails on offer during the company’s Twelve Days of Christmas.
Here, unordinary is precisely the point, and the perpetually bustling tasting room is evidence that the company’s quirky circus brand has struck a chord with Casper’s social scene.
Since opening in 2014, Backwards Distilling Co., Natrona County’s first distillery and the apex of creative cocktails in the city, has shown how a smartly executed brand experience can drive the demand for spirits.
“We knew early on that we really wanted to grow and develop cocktail culture in this area, knowing that if people didn’t drink cocktails, they wouldn’t really have much use for our product,” said Amber Pollock, who co-founded the distillery with her mother, father and brother.
“The tasting room is an important feature of our business model,” she said. “It's where we can bring our brand story to life and where people can get the full brand experience.”
As for that experience, no offense to the joint’s prize-winning spirits, but you could sell the idea of Backwards Distilling on atmosphere alone.
Cirque du Soleil Origins
Housed on the ground floor of the Klines building in Casper’s historic downtown district, this tasting room’s mid-century meets steampunk aesthetic is meticulous and eclectically offbeat. It’s a space that feels chancy but somehow inevitable, which makes sense for a notion conceived in Las Vegas.
Pollock traces the origins of the brand identity to a family vacation to see Cirque du Soleil. Pollock, at the time a teen. She raced to the gift shop after the show to buy juggling balls, which kicked off an obsession that would later take her to circus camp in Vermont.
While the actual circus would not be her calling, its ethos was tattooed on her personality. So when the family decided to co-found the distillery in 2014, a brand identity quickly crystalized.
“It's a traveling sideshow circus,” said Pollock. “That inspiration is on our bottles and label design. It's on our menu and in our drinks. It's in our space. It's all based on that aesthetic.”
Pollock, 36, wearing a knit beanie cap, skinny jeans and Chuck Taylor Converse, could as easily pass for a skateboarder as an entrepreneur.
Although the family founders come from non-culinary backgrounds, she explained how their shared excitement for the idea pushed them to pull out the stops in an intensive 24-month incubation before opening its initial distillery space in the city of Mills, where it became the first business to make local Wyoming vodka, gin and rum.
In the late 2010’s they turned their focus to the Casper tasting room at 214 S. Wolcott St., which has since supercharged both the distillery’s business and the broader Casper cocktail scene.
The Experience
Nodding to the travelling sideshow milieu are glass-topped steamer trunk coffee tables, jauntily stacked vintage box luggage, and a wall of gold gilt antique mirrors that greet patrons at the door.
Velvet flocked wallpaper and dim Edison bulbs create a stay-awhile mood in the lounge, where patrons settle into studded wing backs and plush barrel chairs as jazz standards trickle down from the ceiling speakers.
Above, the plank-wood mezzanine loft offers a tasting room view and a patio vibe suited for larger groups. Opposite the lounge, tufted high back booths stand against a wide, white-striped wall that rises into the raftered ceiling, giving the impression that you’re sitting under the Big Top.
While at the bar, patrons receive the sights and sounds of cocktail creation in real time. The metallic rattle of ice-cubes jostling in a shaker; the scent of ground nutmeg and cinnamon mingling with fresh lemon rind as the bartender shaves a garnish for your toddy.
“It's fun because there’s different seating. You can sit on a couch, a chair, at a table, a booth. And none of the areas feel the same,” said Sara Lamb, Casper resident and distillery regular, nibbling at the salted rim of her paloma.
Bold And Unordinary Menu
The atmosphere is practically milquetoast compared to the cocktail menu, which graduates in three steps: from approachable to adventurous and on to the totally unexpected.
It begins with The Ticket Booth with drinks like the Big Top, made of vodka, grapefruit, lime, tarragon and bitters.
From there it heads to the intermediately bold Menagerie, which includes drinks like the Congress of Rough Riders, made of rum, root beer reduction, egg white and sarsaparilla bitters.
Finally, it brings you to The Oddities, where adventurous patrons find cocktails like the gin-based Truthfully Advertised, a perplexing concoction of chicken brine, barley syrup and cayenne-spiced maple.
“You can't find this anywhere else. You can go somewhere else and get a basic drink, but here they make it more fun and interesting. It's not another brewery,” said Micheal Calvert, a regular who’s partial to the safer side of the menu, but lately finds himself branching out. “I tried a citrusy moonshine drink, and the rim was dashed with a kind of special numbing salt. I liked how different it was.”
Casper’s Backwards Distilling Co. makes its own liquors, then turns them into show-stealing cocktails. Many of the creations — and atmosphere — are inspired by the circus. (Backwards Distilling via Facebook) 
Casper’s Backwards Distilling Co. makes its own liquors, then turns them into show-stealing cocktails. Many of the creations — and atmosphere — are inspired by the circus. (Backwards Distilling via Facebook) 
Casper’s Backwards Distilling Co. makes its own liquors, then turns them into show-stealing cocktails. Many of the creations — and atmosphere — are inspired by the circus. (Backwards Distilling via Facebook) 
Casper’s Backwards Distilling Co. makes its own liquors, then turns them into show-stealing cocktails. Many of the creations — and atmosphere — are inspired by the circus. (Backwards Distilling via Facebook) 
Casper’s Backwards Distilling Co. makes its own liquors, then turns them into show-stealing cocktails. Many of the creations — and atmosphere — are inspired by the circus. (Backwards Distilling via Facebook) 
Casper’s Backwards Distilling Co. makes its own liquors, then turns them into show-stealing cocktails. Many of the creations — and atmosphere — are inspired by the circus. (Backwards Distilling via Facebook) 
Casper’s Backwards Distilling Co. makes its own liquors, then turns them into show-stealing cocktails. Many of the creations — and atmosphere — are inspired by the circus. (Backwards Distilling via Facebook) 
Two of the Twelve Days of Christmas cocktails at Casper’s Backwards Distilling Co. Left is Eleven Pipers Piping and right is Twelve Drummers Drumming. (Backwards Distilling via Facebook) 
Casper’s Backwards Distilling Co. makes its own liquors, then turns them into show-stealing cocktails. Many of the creations — and atmosphere — are inspired by the circus. (Backwards Distilling via Facebook) 
Casper’s Backwards Distilling Co. makes its own liquors, then turns them into show-stealing cocktails. Many of the creations — and atmosphere — are inspired by the circus. (Backwards Distilling via Facebook) 
Casper’s Backwards Distilling Co. makes its own liquors, then turns them into show-stealing cocktails. Many of the creations — and atmosphere — are inspired by the circus. (Backwards Distilling via Facebook) 
Casper’s Backwards Distilling Co. makes its own liquors, then turns them into show-stealing cocktails. Many of the creations — and atmosphere — are inspired by the circus. (Backwards Distilling via Facebook)
When Life Gives You A Limited License …
It's not just the circus brand identity that’s driving Backwards’ creativity, it's also an outcome of necessity.
The distillery is limited by its manufacturing license, which means it can only offer proprietary products. This has led its team to search for ways to create flavor profiles similar to popular offerings they’re unallowed to sell.
“It’s forced us to have to learn about infusions as a base principle. At other bars, if they want to make a drink that calls for vanilla vodka, they just go buy a vanilla vodka. But we have to make vanilla vodka from scratch. It encourages us to be more open to creativity,” said mixologist Elek Waldron, offering by example the use of sous vide water baths in the creation of products like banana moonshine and horchata rum.
Another example comes in the distillery’s equivalency to tequila, a trademarked product requiring regional origins, similar to Cognac or Champagne. Instead of blue agave, they ferment cane sugar using a tequila-style yeast, producing a rum with a smoky tequila note. Elsewhere, they imitate vermouth, a botanical-infused and fortified wine, with non-alcoholic infusions of fruits and botanicals like gentian flower and juniper.
Sideshow Parallels
Also like the traveling sideshow, many of the drinks are itinerant in nature.
The brand event Twelve Days of Christmas, for instance, offers one-night-only cocktails eponymously aligned to the classic Christmas song.
One example is the pun-rich riff on the paloma, which is the Spanish word for dove, as well as a popular grapefruit tequila cocktail. Here they substitute rum and add winter notes inspired by Turtle candies, including a dash of crushed pecan, dark chocolate and salt around the rim.
Such experimental products often spring from its biannual “R&D days,” when team members gather to pitch and workshop personal cocktail concepts. Winning ideas can make it to the “experimental line,” in which the company solicits community feedback on limited-time products that could yet become mainstays.
In this way, the company finds yet another parallel to circus life, with an inclusive, one-big-family milieu.
“They’re the reason we show up. They’re the reason we want to be here,” said a mixologist named Zimaree, referring to the Pollock owners. “The whole thing is really creative, and they’ve made us a part of that.”
Pollock sums up the brand’s appeal this way:
“The circus is such a rich tradition. It exists across time and place in human history. A lot of people have some sort of nostalgia or experience or a story to tell, and we’ve been able to tap into that and connect with people on that idea. Plus, it’s just very colorful, and lively and fun.”
