As Wylie McDade was winding down his nearly 25-year Navy career, he would talk often with his brother-in-law Brian Halbert during his visits home about what would come next in his life and career. The two had long talked about starting a business together that could leverage their respective talents and experience.
They wanted to make something, but what?
Turns out the answer was swirling right there in the glasses they held in their hands. “We would always chat while sharing some whiskey,” McDade said. “One day I looked down and said, ‘How about we make this?’”
Today they are the proud owners of Devil’s Due Distillery in Kearneysville, W.Va. Devil’s Due is located just off Route 81 near the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers. It’s a hop, skip and a jump from the history, natural beauty and countless recreational, dining and lodging options—from Harpers Ferry to the rolling hills to the C&O Canal—that make Jefferson County one of the region’s most popular tourism hotspots.
Devil’s Due is another feather in the cap of a growing brewery and distillery scene in Jefferson County, including Abolitionist Ale Works and Bavarian Brothers Brewing at the Bavarian Inn in Shepherdstown.
McDade and Halbert built their first prototype whiskey still in 2015 and dove deep into the whiskey-making process by visiting distilleries and reading all they could find.
“We spent some time getting an understanding of how to ferment grain using yeast and keeping the yeast healthy, then making sure bacteria doesn’t win the race with yeast so we could create a good fermentation,” McDade said. “Then it was about understanding how to turn this shaggy mess of grain and water into a clear spirit, then learning what it means to barrel something.”
With no whiskey distillation training available at colleges and universities, he said, the process was about learning as you go, a nod to the state’s rich and colorful moonshining history.
There’s an even greater nod to the endless array of natural resources of the region and state they call home. The distillery relies heavily on the land and the farmers who work it, using locally sourced fresh grains that grow in nutrient rich soils nurtured by the multitude of rivers that flow through the area. McDade and Halbert add to the local flavor by using 100% American charred white oak, much of it sourced from Appalachia.
It delivers, as they share in their marketing materials, “the local flavor of Appalachia derived from the air, the earth and the water you just can’t create elsewhere.”
McDade began reaching out to local farmers almost immediately after the distillery’s launch. “We started with a local thousand-acre dairy farm that now produces a majority of the yellow corn that we make our bourbon from.”
Devil’s Due now has agreements with four local farms, including the latest, which is growing heirloom corn. A little, McDade said, can go a long way.
“They agreed to plant a whopping two-and-a-half acres of blue corn, but with good luck that is going to fuel about 10,000 pounds of grain, which will become eight to 10 barrels of whiskey that we can turn into 2,500 bottles of bourbon.”
He tries to ensure a good deal for all involved. “I pay the farmer market price and he gets to do a special project and open some land he might not otherwise use. Then we turn his corn into little gold bricks.”
McDade’s extensive Navy experience and training made him a perfect fit for the logistics side of the business, and his obvious gifts with people made him a natural for client-forward interactions of all kinds. Halbert, a longtime software engineer and contractor, was perfectly at home in the world of operations. “The truth is,” McDade said, “we both wear 72 hats.”
McDade’s wife Cynthia has been a key player throughout, handling social and media schedules. Their son Ethan directs company distribution. The family-run business hires locally, and today the team numbers eight in total, including Ken Walker, the director of product development whose vast array of talents include graphic design and being a longtime moonshiner.
As an “ultra-small batch” distillery, Devil’s Due combines old-fashioned distilling techniques into its commercial production process, distinguishing each individual batch from another. “I always tell people,” McDade said, “that you can always get the exact flavor that the big guys want anywhere in the world, but that means running the whiskey through the commercial ringer.”
If you’re looking for that, he says, you should probably go somewhere else. “Any one of America’s largest distilleries has made more whiskey in the time we’ve been talking than I’ve ever made in my life.”
Creating spirits, while a big part of the Devil’s Due model, is not everything. They are focused on creating an experience. “We aim to create a five-star experience,” McDade said. He points to the distillery’s beautiful tasting room, where customers can sample the whiskies and enjoy a rotating cocktail menu that will highlight different spirits each week.
It’s a place where you can not only savor but learn. “When you’re done with your tasting,” he said, “we take you in the back where the equipment is and show you where the corn comes from and how it’s processed and cooked right here and then how it’s fermented, then distilled, and aged right there in our barrel room. The tour often includes a tasting right out of the barrel.”
Those tastings are the key to Devil’s Due’s success, McDade said. “If I can get the liquor to your lips, the chances of closing that sale rise to about 95 percent.”
In a world and industry so often measured by bigger and better, Wylie McDade chooses to gauge Devil’s Due’s offerings and success in a different way. “We don’t ever try to be better than the big guy. Their distilleries are 200 to 300 years old—literally centuries of experience. Ours is three. We have the rest of our lives to try and be better. What we try to be is different, and that’s really the secret of our success.”
