Natasha DeHart

Natasha DeHart was born in March of 1980. Not much information is publicly available regarding her early life, but in 2003, DeHart graduated from Florida State University. She later married and lived in Munich, Germany with her husband, Ryan. While in Germany, the couple developed an appreciation for the region’s beer, wine, and whiskey culture. Returning to the States, the DeHarts began homebrewing in their Dallas home. Beer led to winemaking, and winemaking led them to distillation. Then in 2011, the couple’s homebrewing interests became a commercial opportunity when a mutual friend introduced the DeHarts to Quentin Witherspoon, who was experimenting with rum. The meeting produced a plan for a distillery, and the project quickly began to form officially under a founding team composed of Witherspoon, the DeHarts, and Laurent Spamer. It was that progression that placed Natasha among the relatively small number of women who have founded American distilleries and directed whiskey-blending programs.

Soon, the four friends, now fully committed to owning a distillery together, leased a warehouse, applied for federal and state permits, and built a still by hand. By late summer 2012, the enterprise had a name: Witherspoon Distillery. Legally approved and operating in Lewisville, Texas, its first commercial emphasis placed on Quentin’s “River Rum”. Natasha was then engaged in the young company’s management, sales, marketing, and production work, gaining practical knowledge across the business rather than entering through a narrowly-defined distilling position. This broad involvement became important as the company expanded beyond rum and developed a lasting identity in grain-derived spirits. That change began with a 2013 project undertaken by distillery intern Christy Cockrell. Cockrell’s grain-to-glass malt whiskey, later named Cross Timbers, helped redirect the distillery from rum toward whiskey. A change in Texas law that passed in September permitted distilleries to offer samples and limited direct sales of cocktails and bottles, allowing Witherspoon to conduct its first public tour on September 7, 2013. By early 2014, the operation had grown from a manufacturing facility into a tasting room, bar, gift shop, and tourist destination, with hundreds of visitors arriving for tours during busy periods. The expansion placed Natasha at the intersection of whiskey production, hospitality, and consumer education.

With the development of Cross Timbers, whiskey soon became the distillery’s central concern. Witherspoon left the team in 2018, and the remaining members committed themselves even more deeply to experimentation and blending. Natasha soon emerged as the company’s head blender, while Ryan concentrated on distillation. Their work divided the whiskey-making process into complementary responsibilities: Ryan produced and barreled the component spirits, and Natasha evaluated the mature barrels and determined how different mash bills could be combined into a balanced finished whiskey. Her blending work depended on sensory judgment, repeated sampling, and an understanding of how bourbon, rye, wheat, malt, and light whiskey could contribute different structural and flavor elements. That work reached the market in October 2019 with BENDT No. 5 American Blended Whiskey. The whiskey combined five distinct spirits—bourbon, rye, malt, wheat, and light whiskey—each distilled, aged separately, and blended at the Lewisville distillery. The components were made primarily from Texas grain, much of it obtained from North Texas farms. The demanding process required the distillery to produce and mature five individual whiskeys before Natasha could assemble them into one expression.

The launch of BENDT No. 5 also gave the company a new name. Witherspoon Distillery became BENDT Distilling Company in 2019, reflecting the bending and weaving together of separate whiskeys into a unified blend. Needing more space, the renamed business then moved into a former Piggly Wiggly grocery store near Main Street in Lewisville, where it operated production facilities, barrel storage, a tasting room, a lounge, and an approximately 4,000-square-foot whiskey garden. BENDT No. 5 earned a Gold Medal in the American Distilling Institute’s 2020 judging of craft spirits. In 2024, it was named American Blended Whiskey of the Year at the USA Spirits Ratings, reinforcing the importance of Natasha’s blending work to the distillery’s public identity.

As BENDT’s whiskey stocks continued to mature, Natasha’s responsibilities extended beyond assembling blends. She selected barrels for the UNBENDT line of straight, bottled-in-bond whiskeys, which presented the distillery’s bourbon, wheat, malt, and rye whiskeys individually rather than blended together. UNBENDT Straight Wheat Whiskey and Straight Malt Whiskey appeared in 2022, followed in 2023 by a bottled-in-bond straight bourbon distilled by Ryan in January 2018. Natasha selected five barrels for that bourbon release. Made with Denton County yellow dent corn, Texas Elbon rye, and malted barley, it matured for at least four years in full-sized, 53-gallon new charred American white-oak barrels and was bottled at 100 proof.

Natasha and Ryan are the caring parents of three children (including a child with special needs), yet her penchant for influence and leadership reaches far beyond her family. Under Natasha DeHart’s direction, BENDT joined the American Craft Spirits Association in 2016, the American Distilling Institute and Texas Distilled Spirits Association in 2017, and the American Single Malt Whiskey Commission in 2018. It joined the Texas Whiskey Association and became a Texas Whiskey Trail destination in April 2023. Natasha was elected the association’s secretary later that year and president in 2024; she subsequently served as president of its 2025–2026 board. Natasha DeHart’s work now joins two responsibilities that developed together over more than a decade: directing the flavor of BENDT’s whiskeys and helping establish standards, transparency, recognition, and consumer understanding for Texas whiskey as a whole.

Sources:

  1. BENDT Distilling Company official website, bendtdistillingco.com

  2. Dallas Observer, “Founder Natasha DeHart Elevates Blended Whiskey With a Small-Batch Distillery,” Micah Moore, October 18, 2019, dallasobserver.com

  3. City Lifestyle, “24 Hours With BENDT Distilling Co.,” 2020, citylifestyle.com

  4. Craft Spirits Magazine, “BENDT Distilling Unveils UNBENDT Straight Bourbon,” staff, March 1, 2023, craftspiritsmag.com

  5. Texas Whiskey Association, “Natasha DeHart, BENDT Distilling Co. Blender,” Texas Whiskey Association, February 16, 2026, texaswhiskey.org

Contributed by Tracy McLemore, Fairview, Tennessee