During a recent tour of the Breckenridge Distillery in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, assistant distiller Reynolds Tackaberry siphoned some freshly distilled 120-proof moonshine from a large plastic container using a clear-plastic hose. He called it “white dog.” This is Breckenridge Distillery Bourbon before it’s cut with water and transferred into barrels for aging. Tackaberry, a former Southern California surfer dude with shoulder length brown hair, squirted a few ounces into a wine glass. Then he passed it around to a handful of people clustered next to the distillery’s massive pot still.
We took turns sipping from the communal cup. The stuff seems to explode in your mouth—peppery yet sweet. The back of my throat burned. Water gushed from my eyes. A big smile came to my lips.
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Breckenridge Distillery represents a wave of change that's sweeping America’s liquor industry. Over the past few years, hundreds of small distilleries have opened in more than two dozen states. They're making bourbon, vodka, single-malt whiskey and specialty liquors in small batches. Like the micro-brewery phenomenon that emerged 30 years ago, they have the potential to reshape the way Americans experience alcoholic beverages. It’s out with the ordinary and mass produced; in with the experimental, surprising and fun. “This represents a renaissance in American distilling,” says Bill Owens, president of the American Distilling Institute.
While many of the distilleries just sell locally, a handful, including Breckenridge, have established multi-state distribution and are regional or national brands. Among the best known craft distilleries are Buffalo Trace and Woodford Reserve, both in Kentucky. Not to be outdone by their smaller brethren, the large American distillers have their own craft brands, as well. The result: plenty of variety for the aficionado to choose from.
Every little distillery has its story, and Breckenridge emerged from one man's dream. Bryan Nolt, a radiologist who grew up on the Kansas prairie but relocated to Colorado two decades ago, had developed a keen taste for single-malt whiskey while touring the small distilleries of Scotland. One day in 2007, he and a friend went fly fishing for rainbow trout on Colorado's high-altitude Mohawk Lakes. On the long walk down the mountain, Nolt mused about the possibility of opening his own whiskey distillery in Colorado. By the time they got back to the Jeep, he had the beginnings of a business plan in his head. “I wanted to make whiskey the way a brewer would look at it, like with craft beer,” he says. “I wanted something that had a lot of character.”
In fact, what Nolt envisioned was nothing short of grandiose. He wanted to make an exceptionally fine whiskey in the single-malt Scotch style. After he had engaged veteran California distiller Jordan Via as a consultant to his venture, Nolt presented Via with a bottle of Glenmorangie Signet Scotch, which cost upwards of $200. This was the kind of whiskey he wanted to make, he said. Via had to laugh. “I told him if he wanted something like that, he had to be willing to wait for decades. But I said we could make something really good in six years,” Via recalls.
The bourbon started off as an afterthought but ended up being a major success in its own right. Originally, they decided to make it as a means of bringing in cash while the single-malt whiskey matured. (Their bourbon is aged for three to four years.) Also, single-malt whiskey must be aged in oak barrels that had previously been used for making bourbon or brandy, so it made practical sense for them to distill their own bourbon. A lot of people are glad they did. The bourbon is spicy, yet smooth--a real sipping pleasure. Since being released into the market in 2011, it has won several prestigious awards, including the gold medal as one of top three bourbons in the world in the International Wine and Spirits Competition, 2011.
In a small building shared with a garden center at the foot of a tree-covered mountain, Via, Breckenridge’s a self-styled “still monkey,” makes the stuff from a recipe that includes snow melt water drawn from small reservoirs near the continental divide, a mash of corn, rye and barley, and a couple of years of quality time in charred American white oak barrels. “The most important thing is the water,” says Via. “It's off the mountains so it's very clear and pure. It filters through miles of rocks and picks up trace minerals. That gives it a rich mouth feel.”
Via filters the water minimally using carbon from organically-grown coconut shells. He uses 36% rye in the mash, which gives the bourbon its spiciness. (It's mostly corn, with a smidgen of barley.) And he uses medium-char barrels to allow the rye and oak character to come through. There's also something to be said for distilling whiskey at 9600 feet. It lowers the boiling point by several degrees, which produces a cleaner grain taste and aroma. The water, the altitude and the climate help create a distinctive terroir. “I couldn't produce this anywhere else,” Via says.
In fact, the distillery and its fans have made something of a fetish of the water. Tom Fischer, the proprietor of BourbonBlog.com, recalls his first visit to the place, in October of 2011. Nolt lead him on a hike up nearby Mt. Baldy, where, near the top, where the wind chill temperature was below zero, they sipped bourbon and vodka while standing on a snow field--The Source, Fischer calls it. His assessment of the bourbon: “It's bold but light. You get the spiciness from the rye and delicious sweetness. You get some kick from the oak, but some calm, too.”
The distillery itself has a unique character, as well. When I visited, a dozen volunteers were helping out with the bottling. The distillery keeps an email list of local people who have expressed interest in volunteering. It sends out an alert when it's time to bottle, and typically fills its quota in a few minutes. They set up a bottling line in the main room of the distillery, near the 12-foot-tall copper pot still and the bubbling fermentation vats--named “Justice,” “Fortitude,” “Temperance,” and “Prudence.” They provide the volunteers with Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, shots of bourbon, and their choice of music. When I was there, “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Welcome to the Jungle” were blasting from speakers. The volunteers also get dinner and a bottle of their choice to take home.
One of the pleasures of touring the distillery is seeing whiskey barrels stacked practically to the ceiling. So much potential stored away! The first batch of the single-malt is still two years from bottling but Nolt hopes to be able to hold back some of the barrels so he can one day produce the 30-year-old malt whiskey of his dreams. Will it be as exquisite as Glenmorangie Signet? Hard to predict. But it's likely to be mighty tasty. I look forward to sipping some a few years from now--and perhaps having another swig of the distillery’s moonshine, too.
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