When Dawn and Stacey Wade said they want their new “passion project” to be a force for good, they meant it—so much so that in July 2024, they cut a check for $10,000 for Louisville’s West End School at the same time their project, West End Gin, officially launched.
Charged with a mission of “every pour means more,” $1 of the proceeds from each bottle of gin sold is donated back to the community. The Wades made that first donation even before selling 10,000 bottles.
“We look for opportunities where it’s needed most, and we use our discretion to decide where it’s going to go,” Dawn said. “We knew that they were planning to build a girls’ school and trying to expand and do more things. The name was just fitting, of course. So, we gave our first gift to the West End School.”
The Wades—founders of the fast-growing, Black-owned NIMBUS marketing agency—have long supported philanthropic efforts, but this time, they wanted a “public benefit company” to help struggling communities thrive.
“[We] wanted to have a vehicle that would work full time for us but also—instead of talking about the change that needs to be made in our communities—developing a product and developing a company that’s a public benefit company that can actually take those proceeds and do exactly what a public benefit company is supposed to do,” Stacey said. “We wanted to … have a product that we really love and be able to hire people in that community and develop a product that could have a lasting presence.
So, every pour means more.”
MICHAEL DEVANEY
While the Wades have varying tastes in beverages, the couple share an appreciation for gin.
“We always look for gaps in the system that can be filled, and being here in Kentucky in bourbon country, it would be crazy for us to try to push out a bourbon because one, we would have to age it or buy it,” Dawn said. “And two, we wanted to break through the news with something that would be disruptive.”
By “disruptive,” she explained that they’re making a spirit that’s not your grandfather’s gin.
“Most of us who had experiences with gin at an earlier time, you remember a gin smelling like a pinecone or a Christmas tree, or I always say, like rubbing alcohol. So, you had an immediate visceral reaction to it,” Dawn said. “We wanted you to feel like it was something that was fresh, that was new, that felt fresh, and not just the smell, but also the taste and the experience. So that’s the disruptive nature of what we mean.”
West End Gin is crafted with orange, juniper, coriander, cardamom, lemon peel, grapefruit peel, lemongrass, lemon verbena, jasmine, angelica root, orris root, grains of paradise and cassia.
West End recently released a new offering, The Rose Ann Edition. Named after each of their moms, the spirit includes rosebud petals and fenugreek.
“We have two sweet ladies and who they are and what they represent in the Rose Ann version are really indicative of just who our mothers were,” Dawn said.
Rose and Ann raised a son and a daughter to become successful entrepreneurs, yet firmly rooted.
“I think in every community, it doesn’t matter where you’re at, people need help. I mean, we’re seeing that every single day,” Stacey said. “Why not have a product that can do just that, a company that works in that space?”
West End Gin and The Rose Ann Edition can be found in dozens of liquor stores across Louisville and Kentucky, as well as in Chicago and Washington, D.C. Stacey said the spirit is distributed direct-to-consumer in 34 states.
To find a retailer or order from the website, visit westendgin.com.