KIRBY, Wyo. - "I know how the pioneers felt," Steve Nally said as he gazed from his third-story office window at the sweeping view of this little town of 57 people between Thermopolis and Worland.

But it was not the untouched landscape, remote location or sparse signs of civilization that prompted Nally's comment during the recent grand opening of Wyoming Whiskey, a startup bourbon distillery backed by Jackson owners.

"No one has ever aged bourbon before at this elevation and in this kind of climate," said Nally, who worked for more than three decades at Kentucky-based Maker's Mark, serving for nearly half that time as master distiller.

For the past year, Nally, 59, and his wife, Donna, have been overseeing the start of Wyoming Whiskey, owned by attorneys Kate and Brad Mead and David DeFazio.

The Meads, who are husband and wife, also operate a ranch in Jackson and had bought land in Kirby for use as winter pasture. They also saw the location as a good spot for a distillery, DeFazio said.

The company started production in July and recently welcomed an eclectic mix of curious Bighorn Basin locals and celebratory Jackson supporters, offering tours, music, lunch and even a flyover by fighter jets - everything but product samples.

That will take at least a couple of years and maybe as long as six years, as the bourbon must age in charred oak barrels before it is deemed ready for market. That is where the pioneer aspect of Nally's job comes in.

Though Kentucky has warm summers and cool winters, the extreme temperatures and low humidity in Wyoming are unlike anything distillers have seen in the Bluegrass State.

"We'll just have to see how it goes," said Dennis Lue, a cooker-fermenter operator who is one of about a half-dozen full-time employees making the boutique bourbon.

Lue said the cold snap that swept across the region in early October brought some challenges in keeping the still running at optimum levels.

Nally said that the climate differences won't impair the aging process, where temperature swings cause expansion and contraction of the bourbon, forcing it in and out of the barrel's wood, imparting flavor and color.

But the low humidity could increase the "angels' share" - the amount of bourbon lost to evaporation during its years in the barrel. In Kentucky, up to 25 percent of each barrel evaporates, while Wyoming's dry climate could steal half of each barrel, he said.

Nally said he plans to experiment with fans and misters next summer as he loads barrels into the rick house, a large metal building where the bourbon is raised or lowered onto different racks, depending on its place in the aging cycle.

Though the venture seems huge by Kirby standards, Wyoming Whiskey will be tiny compared with other liquor giants, including the Maker's Mark operation, where Nally oversaw production on 21 fermenters holding 10,000 gallons each.

The Kirby plant has four fermenters, each holding 2,500 gallons of sour mash made from locally grown grains. Wyoming Whiskey will produce about 30 barrels each week, while Maker's Mark churns out about 1,500 barrels a week.

"We're pretty much dedicated to producing a premium bourbon. If everybody in Wyoming decided they liked Wyoming Whiskey, we couldn't produce enough," Nally said.

"We're dedicated to using only Wyoming products," he said, adding that the company gets its corn from "just down the road" and wheat from Byron, barley from Riverton and water from Manderson, brought in twice weekly by a tanker truck.

The artesian well water from limestone reservoirs near Worland is key to producing a great bourbon, Nally said.

"That pure water produces a good, hearty, smooth-tasting whiskey. We're aiming for a nice, smooth taste that you can just sip and really enjoy," he said.

For Nally, who was driving a grain truck to stay busy and connected to the bourbon business four years after retiring from Maker's Mark, the chance to serve as a founding distiller for a new premium bourbon was enough to lure him to Wyoming.

"I missed it," he said of the bourbon business.

"Here, I'm building it from the ground up, including developing the recipe and selecting the grains. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I couldn't pass up," he said.

Donna Nally developed the distillery tour program at Maker's Mark and worked to increase regional tourism through a Kentucky bourbon festival. She is hoping to build tourism in Hot Springs County and draw attention to Kirby's small-town charms.

John Lumley, a Hot Springs County commissioner and former county sheriff, said he has already heard of interest from an Arizona entrepreneur who visited the area and thought the town might be a good location for a microbrewery.

Gov. Dave Freudenthal, who attended the distillery's grand opening and had toured the distillery previously to sign some of the first barrels produced, said he was happy to see the new business come to Kirby.

While Wyoming has too few residents to make a distillery economically viable for serving a local market, Wyoming Whiskey will target a niche national market and "has opened a door for this kind of thing that wasn't there 10 years ago," he said.

Katie O'Loughlen, co-owner of Kirby's only bar and restaurant, said she was happy to see the distillery in town. She has begun opening Butch's Place at 1 p.m., instead of the usual 4 p.m.

Besides picking up some new lunch customers, O'Loughlen said, a few bus tours from a Riverton casino have stopped by.

In fact, the only major complaint was from eager customers unhappy about waiting a few years before sampling the product. They made do with Wyoming Whiskey shirts and caps, including one hat that featured the company logo over a blaze-orange camouflage pattern.

Nally is resigned to hearing the same questions about when the product will be ready, a decision he will make only after sampling the goods hundreds of times from dozens of barrels over the course of a few years.

"We're just trying everything in our power to make a product that the state of Wyoming will be proud of," he said. "In the meantime, we're going to just keep sampling it until it's ready."