“For many successful entrepreneurs, the best ideas are oftentimes staring them straight in the face. Just ask Stephen Paul, owner of Hamilton Distillers in Tucson. For him, the idea to start a whiskey distiller was born during a backyard barbecue with his wife and family in late 2006.

At that time, Paul owned Arroyo Design, a custom furniture company that specialized in pieces made of desert mesquite wood. A skilled woodworker, the Arizona native with deep roots in southern Arizona appreciated the beautiful wood that “grows right in our backyard,” he says. “It had cracks and knots and wormholes. And sometimes you’d find barbed wire and bullets in it. But if you dry it and finish it, it is just so beautiful.”

After a day of woodworking, Paul would bring the mesquite scraps home to barbecue with. One night, as he and his wife Elaine sat by the fire enjoying a glass of Scotch, she asked why they couldn’t dry malt over a mesquite fire instead of a peat fire, which gives whiskey a smoky flavor.

“Knowing what great things cooking over mesquite does to food, I was riveted by the idea,” he says. “I thought it was brilliant.”

“It was actually serendipitous that we started during this time when the Tucson food community was beginning to gain a self-awareness of its culinary uniqueness,” Paul says. “People were beginning to realize our food heritage and the unique things we can take from the desert. The idea for a mesquite-smoked whiskey couldn’t have come at a better time.”

After receiving a warm reception from the market, Paul decided to invest in a 500-gallon system with a malt house and, by the end of 2015, Hamilton Distillers was fully operational. News about the single-malt, mesquite-smoked whiskey traveled quickly and soon, the company was catching the attention of the national media. They had been featured in New York Magazine, Playboy, Forbes, and Esquire, which named Hamilton Distillers one of the best whiskey distillers in America.

Last year, according to Paul, the company bottled about 24,000 bottles of its Whiskey del Bac line, which includes the Dorado, a mesquite-smoked single malt; the Clear, a mesquite-smoked unaged whiskey; and the Classic, an unsmoked single-malt whiskey modeled after a Speyside Scotch, a single malt distilled in northeastern Scotland.

Recently, Hamilton Distillers added a fourth product to the line: The Distiller’s Cut is a cask strength whiskey that is about 120 proof.

“Whiskey buffs have become very fond of cask strength whiskies because you can pour a little glass and taste all the flavor nuances,” Paul explains. “Add a little bit of water and the flavor will change. As you incrementally add more water, you get a whole range of sensory experiences.”