Natasha DeHart, BENDT Distilling Co. Blender

Natasha DeHart doesn’t talk about whiskey like a commodity. She talks about it like a kitchen project that got out of hand. She’s the co-founder and blender at BENDT Distilling Co. in Lewisville, Texas, where she and her husband, Ryan, built a distillery around one core idea, flavor is made, not found.

Her road to blending started long before BENDT had a name. After moving to Dallas from Munich in 2007, the DeHarts began homebrewing, then winemaking, then distilling, and launched Witherspoon Distillery in 2012. Years later, they leaned into whiskey blending and renamed the operation BENDT in 2019, a nod to bending and weaving whiskeys together until the blend becomes greater than the sum of its parts.

A Florida State University grad and the founder of #teambendt, Natasha builds culture the same way she builds whiskey. She backs her people and chases better flavor. She loves whiskey, cooking, learning, and creating, and that curiosity shows up in every batch.

She’s fiercely protective of her crew, a champion of the underdog, and a special-needs mom who knows how to fight for what matters. In 2020 she added “homeschool teacher” to the list, and came out of it with appreciation for the people who do that work for a living.

That grit showed up during the early days of COVID. When sanitizer shortages hit, Natasha helped shift production to make and donate hand sanitizer for first responders and the local community.

Today, she’s helping steer the wider category as President of the Texas Whiskey Association’s 2025-2026 Board, with a term running 2023-2026.

Off the clock, she reads, RVs, travels, and keeps up with three wild kids, alongside the “perfect guy,” conveniently on duty 24/7.