David Epstein

David Epstein’s path to founding Tom’s Town Distilling Co. was never an apprentice-to-master-distiller arc. It was built instead on lifelong friendship, Kansas City history, and a pair of careers that taught him how to shape a brand with an unusual and deliberate point of view. Epstein was born in April of 1965, and he met his lifelong friend and future business partner,Steve Revare, at about fiveyears old, when both were in the same kindergarten in the Kansas City area. What began as childhood familiarity eventually matured into professional trust. That trust became formal in 1995, when the two co-founded a digital media company called BlairLake, working together in advertising and media until the company was sold in 2000.

After BlairLake’s sale, Epstein moved to New York, where he would live for the next eighteen years. The experience broadened his exposure to design, branding, and large-market creative culture. When he eventually returned to Kansas City, he and Revare quickly reconnected, picking up a conversation that had effectively been paused rather than ended. Both sensed that Kansas City was entering a new phase, one defined by a growing appetite for locally made food and drink, and by a renewed interest in the city’s own complicated past.

The idea that became Tom’s Town did not B simply from observing that I It grew from history, specifically, Kansas City’s Prohibition-era reputation and the long shadow of 1930s political boss Tom Pendergast. Epstein and Revare did not arrive at that period by accident. Their families had intersected with Pendergast’s world from opposite sides of the law. Revare’s great-uncle, Maurice Milligan, was the attorney who successfully sent Pendergast to prison. Epstein’s grandfather, Herman Epstein, was a rival bootlegger aligned with the “Rabbits,” a faction opposed to Pendergast’s organization.

Tom Pendergast

That convergence, friendship layered over family lore, became the conceptual engine of Tom’s Town. It gave the brand an internal logic: not just nostalgia, but a specific point of entry into Kansas City’s Jazz Age, filtered through stories that were personal rather than abstract. In early interviews, Epstein has acknowledged that neither he nor Revare came into the project as trained distillers. Instead, they approached it as builders of an experience, filling technical gaps by hiring experienced production talent while focusing their own energy on concept, design, and narrative.

Tom’s Town was officially founded in 2015. The distillery opened to the public in 2016, with distribution expanding in the years that followed. From the beginning, the space was designed to feel like a step back into the Gatsby era: warm lighting, art-deco cues, and a visiblestill positioned as both functional equipment and centerpiece. The environment was meant to slow visitors down, encouraging them to linger and absorb atmosphere as much as flavor.

The company’s early lineup and naming conventions were intentionally narrative-driven. Spirits were named after figures tied to the Pendergast machine and the era’s mythology, while the product mix reflected the practical reality of a new distillery without decades-old whiskey ready for release. In effect, Epstein’s role resembled that of a world-builder as much as a spirits executive. Bottles, labels, room design, and historical references worked together to frame how people encountered the liquid inside.

Over time, that attention to experience expanded beyond the main tasting room. Epstein has noted that Kansas City’s Prohibition-era lawlessness was rarely discussed openly when he was growing up. Tom’s Town became, in part, a response to a broader cultural shift: a willingness to acknowledge the city’s shadowed past rather than smoothing it away. The brand does not attempt to sanitize that history. Instead, it presents it as complicated, messy, and formative, an essential ingredient in understanding how modern Kansas City came to be.

Epstein’s personal life has moved in parallel with these professional developments. He is married to his husband, Wade Tajerian, whose support during the transition from New York back to Kansas City, and through the long, grinding process of opening a distillery, has been significant. In 2023, the couple were featured in a Kansas City Star article highlighting their meticulously restored 1912 home, purchased in 2020 in a quiet Kansas City suburb. The story underscored another pattern in Epstein’s life: an appreciation for historic structures, careful renovation, and the idea that old spaces can be given new, purposefulfutures.

One of the most consistent threads across Epstein’s career is the partnership with Revare itself. Few businesses are built on friendships that begin in kindergarten and endure across decades, multiple industries, and major life changes. That continuity has shaped Tom’s Town as much as any single product decision. The distillery is not the result of a lone visionary, but of two people who learned, early on, how to trust each other’s instincts and divide responsibility without eroding respect.

In Tom’s Town, Epstein and Revare have created more than a spirits brand. They have built a stylized version of Kansas City: art-deco in aesthetic, historically anchored in spirit, and unapologetically specific about where its inspiration comes from. It is a business that sells bottles, but also sells context: an invitation to see the city not just as it is today, but as a place shaped by contradiction, ambition, and reinvention.

Sources:

  1. The Pitch (Kansas City), “Kansas City returns to its craft-distilling roots”, Natalie Gallagher, December 9, 2015, thepitchkc.com 

  2. Tom’s Town Distilling Co. official website, “Our Story”, toms-town.com

  3. Vintegrity Wine & Spirits, “The Story of Tom’s Town”, July 28, 2021, vintegritywine.com 

  4. KCtoday (6AM City), “Q+A with Steve Revare, co-founder of Tom’s Town Distilling Co.”, July 28, 2022, kctoday.6amcity.com

  5. IN Kansas City Magazine, “In Your Cocktail: Tom’s Town Distilling Co.”, Kelsey Cipolla, June 1, 2022, inkansascity.com 

  6. Folly Theater, “It was a night of Paris Cabaret at the Folly Theater!”, June 17, 2019, follytheater.org

  7. Kansas City Star, “The owners of Tom’s Town…’house that booze built’”, Andrea Darr, June 27, 2023, kansascity.com

Headshot photo courtesy of Judy Revenaugh, KC Star

Contributed by Tracy McLemore, Fairview, Tennessee

David Epstein & Steve Revare