Behold the Wonder

Now available on the Square and far beyond, hard work, creativity and opportune timing aligned for Wonderbird Spirits’ locally crafted gin to take flight.

Written by Emily Welly | Photos by Joe Worthem

The craft gin produced by Wonderbird Spirits just got little easier for locals to taste. In December, Wonderbird opened a tasting room on the Square, inside the Lyric in the cozy space that previously housed Bar Muse.

The intimate 350-square-foot space is “optimal for a tasting room,” according to Rob Forster, Wonderbird co-founder, who can occasionally be found there sharing stories about the distillery and its gin with eager tasters.

Forster sees storytelling as part of his job, as he travels to build the brand and develop this business. Meanwhile, business partner Chand Harlow runs the distillery operations at the company’s large facility in Taylor.

Visitors to the new Oxford tasting room will learn about Wonderbird gin and everything that’s gone into the business from Forster, Harlow or Morgan Payne, who will most likely be the one behind the bar (and whose husband Mason Payne is Harlow’s distillery assistant), and they’ll taste ¼-ounce pours of three different Wonderbird gins.

Three house cocktails are on the menu: a martini, a gin-and-tonic and a negroni. Bottles are also for sale.

On Thursday nights, a special cocktail service (reservations recommended) includes a couple of other drinks — craft cocktails or another local beverage — in addition to the regular house cocktails.

For now, the tasting room is generally open Wednesday through Saturday evenings. Hours are limited and likely to change with the season and to evolve, just as Wonderbird has since it dropped its first bottle in early 2020, but the goal remains the same.

“This was always about trying to produce something of true excellence and craft,” Forster said.

When the founders set off on this venture in 2017, they were determined to create a “grain-to-glass” gin, meaning rather than purchase alcohol to use to create gin, they would do their own fermentation, yielding their own alcohol from a substrate grown locally.

“We wanted to do it the old-fashioned way,” Forster said. “That’s quite an undertaking. It’s a huge additional production and craft commitment.”

They scoured Mississippi and eventually found their substrate at Two Brooks Farm, a rice farm in the Delta.

They learned to create a sake by fermenting culinary jasmine rice from the farm that they then combine with botanicals such as juniper and coriander (which they also distill themselves) to make gin. The process is not only unusual in Mississippi; according to Forster, Wonderbird is the third rice-based gin in the world — the other two are in Japan.

Unbeknownst to the distillers at the time, their hard work to be a grain-to-glass producer paved the way for them to open the intimate tasting room on the Square.

As it turns out, the tasting room opportunity also involved some fortunate timing. When they first heard the Bar Muse space was available, state regulations were in place disallowing a manufacturer of alcohol to also be in the bar business. A new law enacted last summer changed that. The state determined that “native distilleries” could operate tasting rooms (“Native distilleries” are defined as distilleries producing “native spirits,” meaning at least 51% of the finished product by volume is obtained from the distillation of products from Mississippi). Wonderbird meets that definition.

Spreading Its Wings

In addition to expanding its efforts locally with the tasting room, Wonderbird is poised to make a splash nationally. The company recently entered a partnership with wine and spirit importer Vino del Sol to exclusively distribute Wonderbird gin across the country.

Early this year, Wonderbird shipped its first five pallets (that’s 3,000 bottles) of gin to Vino del Sol which sells products nationwide. While Wonderbird is already in several states, this partnership increases that potential exponentially.

“They can use their existing distributors,” Forster said. “We can go a lot further and faster.”

Wonderbird, he said, is poised to meet the demand. In 2023, they undertook a major expansion, tripling the size of the warehouse in Taylor, investing in new equipment and increasing their capacity eightfold. That impressive facility includes a gift and bottle shop that’s open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, and they offer tours and tastings by reservation.

Vino del Sol and Wonderbird have more in common than the beverage industry. The wine importation company was started in 2004 by Matt Hedges, who developed his plan for Vino del Sol while earning his MBA at Ole Miss. Because of that, many initial investors in the company were from Oxford and Ole Miss, including Robert Forster — Rob Forster’s father — who was an original Vino del Sol board member.

Fast forward to 2024: Vino del Sol was named Wine Enthusiast’s Importer of the Year. Now living in Texas, Hedges has continued to expand his wine business and is now branching into spirits, hence the Wonderbird partnership.

“As we branched out into spirits, it just made sense to reach out to Rob,” Hedges said. “We are so honored to represent Wonderbird nationally.

“Our companies share the same values — honesty, transparency, real artistic product, family, place, a unique story and, above all, good people. It fits the Vino del Sol ethos, and I’m happy to have two Misssippi boys together.”