diff --git a/djrill/mail/__init__.py b/djrill/mail/__init__.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/djrill/mail/backends/__init__.py b/djrill/mail/backends/__init__.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/djrill/mail/backends/djrill.py b/djrill/mail/backends/djrill.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..be4ba9c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/djrill/mail/backends/djrill.py
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+from django.conf import settings
+from django.core.exceptions import ImproperlyConfigured
+from django.core.mail.backends.base import BaseEmailBackend
+
+
+class DjrillBackend(BaseEmailBackend):
+    """
+    Mandrill API Email Backend
+    """
+
+    def __init__(self, fail_silently=False, **kwargs):
+        """
+        Set the API key, API url and set the action url.
+        """
+        super(DjrillBackend, self).__init__(**kwargs)
+        self.api_key = getattr(settings, "MANDRILL_API_KEY", None)
+        self.api_url = getattr(settings, "MANDRILL_API_URL", None)
+
+        if not self.api_key:
+            raise ImproperlyConfigured("You have not set your mandrill api key "
+                "in the settings.py file.")
+        if not self.api_url:
+            raise ImproperlyConfigured("You have not added the Mandrill api "
+                "url to your settings.py")
+
+        self.api_action = self.api_url + "/messages/send.json"
+
+    def open(self):
+        """
+        Ping the Mandrill API to make sure they are up
+        and that we have a valid API key and sender.
+        """
+        pass
+
+    def send_messages(self, email_messages):
+        pass
diff --git a/settings/base.py b/settings/base.py
index c79b5b7..11f3758 100644
--- a/settings/base.py
+++ b/settings/base.py
@@ -24,6 +24,9 @@ DATABASES = {
 MANDRILL_API_KEY = None
 MANDRILL_API_URL = "http://mandrillapp.com/api/1.0/"
 
+#EMAIL BACKEND
+EMAIL_BACKEND = "djrill.mail.backends.djrill.DjrillBackend"
+
 
 # Local time zone for this installation. Choices can be found here:
 # http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_zones_by_name