25. Colorado Whiskey - Rugged, Refined, Rebellious

My Colorado barrel proof with Averna, a black Manhattan is my drink. If I'm going to mix that with something other than lemonade and stuff like that. But if I'm having a Manhattan type drink, I make a black Manhattan with that and it barrel proof and you can't have too many of them barrel proof, but it's a phenomenal drink.

Jim was drinking that last night.

I was drinking Black Manhattan's with Aperol.

Yeah, so Aperol. Try the Averna. Averna. Okay. It's really good that way. I'll do that. Some dashes, bitters, and that's about it.

Welcome to another trip down the Bourbon Road with your hosts, Jim and Mike. So grab a glass of your favorite bourbon and kick back.

Welcome back y'all to another episode of the Bourbon Road. But before we get started, we'd like to thank Chris and all the staff at Westport Whiskey and Wine for hosting this episode of the Bourbon Road in their tasting room. We would also like to thank Log Heads Home Center for supporting this episode of The Bourbon Road. Find out more at logheadshomecenter.com. This week we've got a really great show for you. We're talking Colorado bourbon whiskey. My wife and I had an opportunity to visit family in Colorado and while we were there, we made a quick stop at the 291 Distillery in Colorado Springs. So we took the tour and Emily was kind enough to give us a really nice tour and we were able to explore the distillery and afterwards we sat down at the tasting bar with her and we tasted all of their offerings. And I have to be honest with you, we were quite impressed. So, I reached out to Emily later on to see if we might be able to interview Michael Myers, who is the master distiller. She was really nice to make it all work out. It just so happened when we got back to Kentucky, Michael was in Louisville for the trio of Louder Than Life, Urban and Beyond, and Hometown Rising. So while he was here for that, he was able to break away for a few and give us an interview, and that's what we've got here for you. So I hope you all enjoy it, sit back and relax, and learn a little bit about Colorado whiskey. Enjoy. Hello everybody, I'm Jim Shannon. And I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is The Bourbon Road. And today we are at Westport Whiskey and Wine here in Louisville, Kentucky. And we've got a great guest with us today. Who do we have, Mike? We've got Mike from 291 to Stilling. Great to have you on the show today. Thank you guys for having me. This is awesome. It's a real pleasure for us to have you in here and especially to have you bring a couple of fine products for us to taste. We like to get straight to the whiskey. So what do we have in our glass for the first pour today?

Sounds good to me. So I make Colorado whiskey and in our glass right now is 291 Colorado bourbon whiskey. You know, when I started this, I wanted to make a Western whiskey and be bold and beautiful like Colorado. And I believe I've done that. Okay, so this is a bourbon. It is a bourbon. It is 80% corn, 19% malt rye, 1% malt barley.

And I see all kinds of stickers on the front of this bottle. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Yeah, so I won double gold from New York, double gold from San Francisco for this bourbon. I won a gold Masters from the Spirit Business. We won People's Choice Award at Breckenridge, still on the Hill. It's done very well.

Now, how long have you been making this particular one? I'm nosing it, by the way. I tell you what, you said 80% corn and then 19% malted rye. That is correct. And that malted rye comes from?

Germany at the moment. We are malting some rye in Colorado, but when I started this in 2011, nobody was malting rye in Colorado.

Okay. Where do you source your corn from?

We get our corn from a place called Root Chute in Colorado. So it's all Colorado corn.

That Western corn. Yep.

Oh, I'll tell you what, I'm really enjoying the nose on this. I'm getting a little bit of cinnamon and some plum maybe, or?

Getting a little bit of floral there. I could smell that malted rye though.

Yeah, the malted rye is really contributing to that. Floral little. Yeah, little fruit. Yeah. Dark fruit. Well, cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Oh, that hits you all at once. Everywhere. Just bam.

Bam.

Yeah.

It's delicious. Thank you. It's a hundred proof. So it's about right in my level right there. I love that honor proof. You start getting higher to that for me than I still love it. But this is, this is my jam right here.

Yeah, good. Yeah, it's really good. So, you know, sometimes bourbons kind of work their way back. This one kind of presents itself like all over the palette at once. It's really nice up front. You know, I'm getting a, that cinnamon kind of that cinnamon has a lot of cinnamon on it. But as that cinnamon, And it's got a long finish. It's got a pretty long finish. Thank you.

Yeah.

But other things start to come out. And you said dark fruit. Yeah. Plum, figs. Sometimes I have a hard time with which one, but yeah.

Man, a good Fig Newton cookie right here. Yeah, right. With a little cinnamon in it. With a little bit of cinnamon. Might have to market that right there. Yeah. I think it hits right with your words on your shirt you're wearing today. Rugged, refined, rebellious. I love it. When I think of Colorado, I think of an old western movie. Maybe John Wayne in the Cowboys or something driving some cattle. And I could see him sitting by a campfire at the end of a long drive drinking some of this right here.

Well, thank you, because that's what I set out to do. I set out to make a Western whiskey that, you know, walk into a bar on a dusty day and say, give me a whiskey, and they put 291 on the bar and pour you a whiskey. So thank you for that.

I don't get that dust in it, though. It lingers in your mouth a little bit there. It's got some great legs in the glass.

Yeah, so it seems quite viscous. Yes.

So you're not filtering this then? I am not filtering it. OK. I mean, big chunks, yes. That's it. Yeah. But no chill filtration. No chill filtration.

Just a little bit of henna oak in the back end there.

Yeah, a little bit. Barrels, they change. As we all well know, whiskey, different barrels taste different. So, this bottle could be, I could have pulled another barrel and it be totally different, not totally different, but different. Could not have as much cinnamon in it. They, they vary, you know, a little more cherry in it instead of, uh, you know, more stone fruit than, than like, uh, dark fruit to me, different things.

So this particular one we're drinking now is a batched bourbon, right? Or is this a single barrel?

Uh, these are single barrels. They are both single barrels. Okay. They are. We are, we are moving, uh, to, to batching. Um, just, uh, for all kinds of reasons. When you're small, it's just easier. But our barrel proof that's not in Kentucky yet, but our barrel proof will always be single barrel. That's great.

So Mike, your roots started in whiskey in your family somewhere, right? Because you're from Georgia.

I don't know that I had whiskey in my background. Nobody really talked about it. I am from Georgia, born and raised. My grandparents in South Carolina did some Musconine wine, scuffing on wine. Nothing wrong with that. Never tasted it. I wish I had. Oh, that's some good stuff. Yeah, right. And then college, you know, actually before college, I'm old enough that you could drink at 18 in Georgia. So I drank some whiskey. One of the first ones I drank was Yukon Jack before they really changed it. I remember that. Yeah, sweet. It was fun. Then I moved to Jack. drank Jack in college and stuff, a little Crown Royal. I got so sick, won Super Bowl on Crown Royal, woke up the next morning and was like, I don't want to not drink whiskey. So that afternoon I went back to the bar and drank and it was tough. that first sip, wow, because I was really sick. But I did not want to stop drinking whiskey.

I think all of our listeners have a story like that, really, right?

But a lot of them don't go back. I mean, probably your listeners do because they drink bourbon and whiskey now. But a lot of people, you always, oh, I had a bad time in college. I can't drink. I can't even smell it. And I just didn't want that for me.

So how are you drinking your whiskey, just like we are now, neat in a glass?

That's a great question. I drink it all kinds of ways, mostly neat. I mean, you know, but I make it. I have whiskey around me all the time. I drink this bourbon is amazing in Mountain Dew. Oh, really? Yep. People look at me like I'm crazy. But you put it in Mountain Dew. If you like Mountain Dew. I do. It's a great summer drink. A neat whiskey. So we're at Hometown Rising right now, the festival, and country music and all that. And it's hot. It's going to be 95 degrees, 70% humidity today. And to drink a neat bourbon out in the sun, that's a little tough. So a little Mountain Dew, lemonade. I love bourbon and lemonade or rye and lemonade. I grew up on Jack and Coke, like most people. Where did you go to school? I graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design as a photo major.

All right. And, you know, kind of tell us how that decision to follow a particular path in your career, how did that sort of come about? When did you decide, this is what I want to do?

Yeah, so meaning photography, right? Meaning photography, yes. So my mom moved to California when I was six. And I lived with my dad in Georgia, spent my summers out there, and Christmas. And one Christmas when I was 15 turning 16, she gave me a camera. I wanted a camera all the time. And she gave me Polaroids and stuff. And I'm like, no, I want a real camera. And so she gave me an Olympus OM10, a Cheryl Teagues camera. Cheryl was the advertisement for that. And I picked up that camera and didn't look back. I literally decided like then that I wanted to be a photographer. And I took photos of sports, football, basketball, and had a knack. I have a really great hand-eye coordination. And I could hit it right at the right moment. I can do it with an iPhone. Oh, really? Yeah. One of my son's friends is a big high jumper. or whatever over the bar and you only have one shot and I have a beautiful picture of him going over it with iPhone and people can't believe it but it's just timing. So I went to SCAD for photography and then moved to California Actually, back to Atlanta for a year and then moved to California. And during that time, I shot Angelina Jolie at 15 and 16 years old, shot for Banana Republic during that time. I had met with them for the first Iraq war. I got out of the meeting. And that was the day that they started the bombing. I forget what they called it back then. Yeah, and then a bunch of other LA magazines and stuff, and I was there for about five years and then moved to New York.

Yeah, so you were part of an agency or you were working as an independent? Freelancing. Freelancing, okay. I had a portfolio, knock on doors and show my portfolio.

Were you drinking bourbon at that time in New York? In New York, yeah, some bourbon. I was drinking, before New York, I was drinking bourbon and tequila. My stepfather, I lived with my mom and my stepfather in Malibu and that's when I met Sam Elliott and he to this day is a dear, dear friend of ours. And they would go out fishing almost every day in a little metal John boat. They'd launch off the surf and come back with this amazing fish. And a friend of mine and I had built an outdoor kitchen for them. And we cooked the fish and they'd go through a bottle of bourbon or a bottle of tequila in the afternoon or whatever and just have amazing time food. And so I drank a lot then, not a lot, but I mean, bourbon and tequila. California is big on tequila. Right. Bourbon's catching on out there now, too. It is starting to. We're out there. We just opened California, well, a couple of years ago, very small. We're building that right now. And yeah, so then I moved to New York and I drank a lot of bourbon and whiskey in New York, a lot of scotch, rye whiskey, I mean Irish whiskey.

So tell us how did you go from New York City out to Colorado and making whiskey? Because you just don't do that overnight, right?

No. What special event made that happen? So 9-11. Really not a special event, a horrible event in American history, right? Yeah. So 9-11, I lived three blocks from the World Trade Center. I was on Greenwich and Duane when the first plane flew over. My son was on my shoulders. His birthday is September 10. He was four years old that day. And so it was a crazy day. I saw everything. My kids saw everything. My other son was in our building. On the second floor was his school, PS89. He was looking out the window because we had just left. So he saw it all. And my wife at the time, her parents lived in Colorado Springs. We couldn't get back in our apartment. So we moved to Colorado Springs for about nine months. And then we moved back to New York. And I commuted during that time and then moved back to Colorado. I commuted and just got to a point where I was like, I've got to do something different. And I read an article in August of 2010 about the guy that created Sailor Jerry and Hendrix Chen and thought I could brand a whiskey. So, you know, didn't think about making it. I had never brewed beer or distilled and talked to a friend that was a brewer, Mike Bristol, Bristol Brewing Company. And he said, get your license. I'll try and help. I know how to brew beer. I don't know how to distill. And I said, I'll figure that out. And You know, they make it in the woods in Georgia, can't be that hard. So I read everything, watched Popcorn Sutton's documentary, learned a little from him, actually in that documentary. He, in the worm, the whiskey's coming out, he breaks a small twig and he puts it in there. And he says, if it gets bigger than the twig, it's fighting whiskey, meaning you're running it too fast and too many impurities are coming over. because that makes you crazy. And so I listened to that. And so all my original runs were really slow and long. They were 12 to 15 hours. And yeah, so I built my still. I talked to Vindome, and a 50 gallon still from them at the time was around 50 grand. I don't have that kind of money. Oh, wow.

That's a lot of money for a 50 gallon still.

And this was before the craft really, you know, was coming around. People weren't making mini stills. There were a couple of people out there, small ones. And I decided I could build my own. And I had some copper. So as a photographer, I had done a show in Trebekah with photogravures. And a photogravure is a flat copper plate. You chemically etch the image into the plate. You put ink on that plate. You put a piece of paper with it. and you run it through a press and you get an inked photograph. So I took these inked photographs, had them hanging in Trebekka, and then after that, the copper's not any good for that anymore. So I said, I have seven of those plates. I can build a still. So I had water jet cut my pattern out of it. I rolled it, hand rolled it with this guy so it was curved. And then a guy TIG welded it together for me. And on that still, you can still see the images on it. I have pictures. Some of them are on our website. Yeah, that's amazing.

So the volume of this first still? 45 gallons. 45 gallons. So you're pretty close to the 50 gallon you were looking for. Yeah, exactly.

That's almost some Georgia moonshine stuff right there. It is.

That's a story to tell, though. I have a picture I can show you guys when we're closer together. So we're in a room that's about 300 square feet. The ceiling's a little higher than it was for me. But I started in 300 square feet. I had a DSP, DSP Colorado Socio 15023. And that's my DSP today. And I could do 60 gallons a month. I had six 55 gallon Pepsi plastic fermentation tanks. And then I had a 55 gallon drum stainless that I mashed in. Then I put another top on it and it became my stripping still. So I'd mash in two mashes a day. So that'd be three days of mash in. It would ferment over five days, five, six days. Then I'd strip and I could strip two a day. So that would be, you know, three days and then a finish run. And I'd get about 35 gallons, put it in that still and finish it. Wow.

So that's really starting from scratch. Yeah. So you had a friend who knew a little bit about how to make the alcohol but not how to strip it out and you had to figure all that out on your own.

I did and even brewing process because I was going to hook up with him and maybe distill a beer that he made and I didn't like what happened there for me at first and I brewed one day or two days with his master brewer at the time. And that was it. And then I wanted to make a bourbon and corn. He had a 50 pound bag of corn. I took it from him, went to the home brew shop, bought rye malt because that's all they had. And that's that original recipe. So 80% corn, 20% malt rye. I changed it a little bit about two months in and added 1% malt barley to it. Wow.

So you really found it, you've really found your recipe very early on. Yep, right off the bat. Right off the bat. That is wild. Well, as I continue to sip on this, You know, it is a lot of cinnamon in the beginning, but that kind of, as you continue to sip on it, that cinnamon sort of takes a back seat a little bit. No, not a back seat, a side seat. And I'm getting like conifer or some kind of evergreen, this nice evergreen flavor to it. Sort of the aspen stave that you... A little bit. Also malt rye has a little bit of that. Evergreen to it. Right, right. Not so much pepper though for me.

I don't actually I barely get any pepper at all It's a super smooth though, man. It's a good juice. Thank you very much.

Really good. Thank you And and what's the age of this? So I don't know exactly but we age about a year year and a half. Okay in the barrel That's amazing. That really is amazing that you're able to There's not much brightness in this at all. It tastes a lot older than it is. It really does. It looks a bit older than it is as well.

The awards I've won have said that too. Jim Murray, Whiskey Bible, if you get 94 points to 97.5, that's his top. He doesn't go over that. You get liquid gold. The bourbons, I believe this one's gotten one liquid gold. I have seven liquid golds from him from six different recipes. So it's been a great ride. My ex-wife was my wife during 9-11 and all that, always says that I was meant to make whiskey. There you go. And it's true. I mean, the story building your own still, not knowing anything about brewing, distilling any of that and learning it and being able to win these awards in a very short period. The rye's been, which we'll talk about later, but the rye's been awarded, Jim Murray gave barrel number two 94 points of that rye.

Your bottle is a little bit different shape and stuff. We don't usually talk about the shape of bottles and stuff, but I think it's a beautiful bottle. How'd you come up with that bottle design?

So I originally started with the same bottle that a lot of whiskies have. I think it's like the Taylor bottle, a strand of hands. And I came across a bottle manufacturer that had this bottle. And I guess they may have showed it to me. And this bottle is very similar to that bottle, but it's more feminine. And I really like that about it because it's a really rugged whiskey. And I like the back and forth of that. It's contrast.

Nice curves on that bottle.

So it took me a while to get in that bottle because I started with the other one and this one I had to buy, I had to say I could buy 30,000 bottles in a period or whatever. And I was like, I know that's a lot. That's a lot. And finally got to it where I could I could buy those bottles. And so I moved into this bottle and I love it. It's so beautiful. You took the cage off the cork. I wanted a bottle that you pull the cork off and it popped. And the cage came from When I was young in Georgia, TBS, Turner Broadcasting, used to on Saturdays do cartoons. And then at a certain time, it went to old movies. And if it was raining and I couldn't go outside, I just kept watching the movies. And there was an old movie on there where they were transporting nitroglycerin. And it was all wired in the wagon so it wouldn't bounce. And so when I was doing high-proof whiskey, I'm like, I got to wire that cage on there. so it doesn't blow open. And so that's where that came from. The typeface is my handwriting put into a font. So let's talk about that. So 291, what's the background there? So 291 was the very first photo gallery ever in the world. Gallery 291 on Fifth Avenue, 291 Fifth Avenue in New York City. Alfred Stieglitz started it in like 1907. And I went to SCAD. And freshman year, I did not know about the gallery. I took an art history class during freshman year. And 291 was my dorm room. I have the key to this day. It's actually in the truck with me. And when I started the whiskey, because I built it out of photogravure plates, the process of distillation reminds me of the dark room. I thought 291 would be a great name. That is a great name. So you drew out that 291 or the font that the labels made in. So the 291, I took a font and designed it a little bit, changed it for me. And I don't talk about this much. So my background was growing up on a farm. I had a motorcycle. I love race cars. I love NASCARs, even though my kids think I'm crazy and my ex-wife. The old placard on a car always had the first and the last number smaller in the middle. And if you look, the nine is bigger on my bottle for that reason. But then the font where it says Colorado Rye Whiskey and all that, that's my handwriting. OK, so you're able to take your handwriting and have it converted to a font. You are. You can go online and you fill out ABC all in your handwriting and you load it and then they'll send you a font back.

Wow. That's a beautiful bottle. And I do know this because I have visited your distillery, but you've also got some rock glasses that are actually made out of the bottoms of these bottles, right?

That is correct. Yeah. Pretty neat. So we recycle our bottles that we have and a place cuts them and then etches 291 Colorado whiskey on them. Pretty cool.

Yeah.

Now, do you sell those? We do. We do. Out of the tasting room. Out of the tasting room. We give some away at dinners and stuff like that. When we're doing dinner, we take them with us and the people drink out of them and then they can take the glass home with them.

Now, can people buy those online from your distillery? Yes.

Sorry. Yes. 291.com. Not 291.com. Sorry. 291ColoradoWhiskey.com.

All right. Well, we're going to continue sipping on this and take a little short break here. When we get back, we'd like to talk a little bit more about your actual process and your equipment and what kind of other expressions you have, but you're going to have another whiskey for us when we get back. Yes, great. We would like to thank Tommy and Gwen Mitchell from Loghead's Home Center for supporting this episode of the Bourbon Road. Loghead's Home Center, nestled in the hills of Kentucky, is an industry leader in building handcrafted rustic furniture. Family owned and operated, they take pride in offering only the very best for their customers. The Logheads, and that's what they like to call themselves, are skilled wood crafters who are passionate about creating rustic furniture for people who appreciate the beauty of natural wood. Owners Tommy and Gwen don't just sell the rustic lifestyle, they live it. And you can be sure that Loghead's furniture will always be handcrafted in Kentucky by artisans who embrace the simple way of life. Loghead's rustic furniture is made from northern white cedar, a sustainable wood that's naturally rot and termite resistant. Its beauty and quality will add warmth to your earthy lifestyle for generations to come. Be sure to check out everything they have to offer at LogHeadsHomeCenter.com. And while you're at it, give Tommy and Gwen a shout on Facebook or Instagram at LogHeads Home Center.

All right, listeners, we're back with Mike here from 291 Distillery. And Mike, what do you have for us this pour?

So this is 291 Colorado Rye Whiskey. This is a whiskey that I really set out to make. I love rye. It's 61% malt rye, 39% corn. That's the one thing I haven't mentioned. Aspen stave finish. So once it's done in the barrel, we take toasted pieces of aspen and put it in the barrel. So the barrel is oak barrel, charred deep traditional barrel like that. And we take toasted pieces of aspen, finish the whiskey on the aspen.

Now a lot of our listeners might not know what an aspen is. So an aspen is a particular kind of tree that in the mountain ranges, right? It only exists between a certain altitude range. Is that correct?

I believe so. I'm not an expert on it.

I think they're right at about 7,000 feet is where aspen trees go.

And then they disappear a little bit before you get to the tree line. So they just live in that little... Microclimate, I guess.

They do. Aspen trees are the world's largest organism. There's a grove. So they grow from the roots. And there's a grove in aspen that's this gigantic, all-connected organism.

So it's really one tree, but with many shoots coming out of the ground. And those shoots are the trees themselves. That's amazing.

I didn't know that. Beautiful fall foliage. If you haven't seen that in the fall and get to get up to the mountains like that and see those, it's super beautiful.

Yeah, the yellow and the reds and oranges from it are really beautiful.

Golden. Have some elk walking underneath them.

That's it. That's life right there. That's life. All right, back to the whiskey. Oh my goodness. Now, this is different. This is definitely a lot different than what we just had in the first half. This is a 100-proof rye whiskey. 101.7 proof.

101.7. And there's a little bit of a story to that. Sure. Let's hear it. So when I started this, I really didn't know much about whiskey. And you harvest one out of a barrel, and you've got to cut it to bottle proof, if you want, or you barrel proof it. So I wanted to do 100 proof rye whiskey and you cut it with water, you add water to it. But if you get below that 100 proof, you can't go back. You're done. So I was nervous and cutting it and got to a point, the first barrel, and I think it was 101.6. And I'm like, I'm good. I'm just going to make it that. And then the next barrel, literally, it came out 101.7. And I'm like, must be. And so every bottle is 101.7. And it's just as hard to hit 101.7 as it is 100 or 90 proof whatever. You just have to cut it slow. Sure, sure.

So you're entering the barrel at 125 on this one as well? 125. 125, okay. And then? We come off the still at about 145, 150. Okay. All right, and so you're adding some water to it, but you also have cast-drink versions of this as well, but just not released in all the states yet.

Yeah, exactly. We do barrel-proof of our bourbon and our rye. We also, special releases are usually, they all are released as barrel-proof. I love high-proof whiskey. You can always add your own water. You can add your own rocks and proof it down.

Well, I'm going to take just a moment with this and see what I can pull out of it. I'll tell you what, I'm getting, I'm still on the nose. I haven't tasted it yet, but. Got a little bit of clove on that back end. A little bit of clove, but I'm getting rye bread. Yeah. I mean, definitely it's got a little bit of rye bread to it.

Everybody always says that with rye. I'm more of a, not a rye guy, but everybody always says that about rye. And I typically don't get that with rye whiskey. I just, I get something a little bit different maybe.

Yeah, that's good.

I mean, I kind of like, in the wintertime, I like to put some cloves with some rum and a little bit of apple juice. But that's what I get out of this right here is that clove.

I'm getting cinnamon and nutmeg, allspice a little bit, kind of the baking trio. Baking spice, yep.

So the interesting thing is the white dog on this whiskey is you can really taste the cinnamon. So it's coming from the grain. It's not coming from the barrel.

Maybe just a little bit of ginger in there.

Yep.

Oh, but now I've tasted it and it's caramel. Yeah, a lot of caramel. Like big time. Wow. That is, that's so amazing because I really didn't pick up that much on the nose, but the minute it hits the pal, it's like, I'm here. I'm caramel.

Now, Mike, what I like about your bottle is you don't hide anything. You, you're straightforward. You tell everybody about, about the whiskey. Um, you're not trying to brand something that's not there. Where do you get your barrels from?

So they come from the barrel mill out of Avon, Minnesota. They do a really nice job. I met them early on. I guess I was looking online for barrels. Came across them and I like their wood. They make my whiskey taste really good. I haven't been into too many other barrels at all. We buy all our barrels from them.

They do the char in there?

They do.

Do you know what char number it is?

Well, everybody's different char numbers. It's their deepest char. And I think it's three, maybe gone to four now. As they've grown, they've changed a little bit.

Can we go into the Wayback Machine just a little bit here and talk about, now you're in your new facility. I am. Pretty nice facility, large, you've got a lot of room to work there, but I think you're probably already thinking about something else.

Yeah, so within a year I will be in a 28,000 square foot space. It's more of a campus, so it'll have probably four buildings. Wow. But I want to go back to 300 square feet. I love that.

Let's talk about that because you were totally inexperienced. I was. You didn't know what you're doing. You had handmade equipment. I did. And you're trying to make your first whisk. I'd love to hear the story about working with that first equipment and then tasting that white dog off for the first time.

It was an amazing time. Everything I do, I mashed in and then stripped. It's three times pot distilled. I stripped it, then put it in the pot, and there's a thump keg or a doubler on that still. So everything was steam-heated. And this is kind of a funny story. I bought a home steam unit for your steam shower to steam-heat everything. So there's coils in all the mash tun and the still. And I went and turned it on. It came on. And everything heating up, I walked over and started taking notes. An hour later, it clicked off really loud. And I was like, oh, that's kind of strange. Walked over there, looked at everything. It was warm. Things were good. Pushed the button. It came back on. you know, went back to taking notes. Hour later, it clicked off again. And I was like, oh my God, it's a home steam unit. It's got an automatic off. So when you leave the house, it goes off and doesn't ruin your house. So for the next two and a half years, 15 hour runs, finish runs, six hour stripping still, mash runs, all that. I had to reset that button every 45 minutes. some long days, right? It made for some long days. I'd go to the bar next door, sit and drink and would leave, just get up and leave, not tell anybody. And they all knew where I was going. I was going to push the button. I'd go drive to a liquor store to make a sale. I had 45 minutes to go do that. And I'd come back, push the button, go to another one. I'd go home, cook dinner, come back, push the button, go home, eat dinner. So yeah, it was it was a funny time. But when the first time that whiskey came off the still was really incredible. You know, you got to do headcuts and you do headcuts and you're nervous about all that. And then you got to tail cuts and you got to figure out where you're where you cut your tails as a distiller. And that's that's what you do as a distiller. That is the art of distillation right there is Whether you cut deep in the tails or high in the tails, wherever, that's where a lot of flavor comes from. I was really nervous about that. When it first came off, there was the green apple in the heads, tasted that and the high alcohol, the acetone and all that. That was pretty much a percentage cut. proof changes and all that. So it's pretty hard cut that you can find. And then the hearts ran out and it was good, sweet. I was like, well, it tastes good like this. It's got to be good whiskey. But I got to that point where I was making the tail cuts and I literally had court jar mason jars. And I literally started collecting as it started dropping pretty quickly. I started collecting in those like I collect the hearts in a big thing. But then I started collecting all the heart or the finish of it in court mason jars. And I had seven or 10 of them lined up. And they were like, pretty much Every 10 proof that it dropped, I was collecting. So I had them so I could go back later and taste it and decide where I wanted to stop without messing up what was already off the still. And you got to have a little dirt in your whiskey. You got to have a little tails in your whiskey. That's what makes good. That's where the character comes from. And when people are tasting whiskey, I love drinking and tasting it. But what I really like to do if you want to really taste whiskey is finish that, let the glass start drying. And as the glass dries, all the notes that are in that whiskey start coming out and you can smell them. When it's coming off the still, I put it on my hands more than taste it and rub my hands together and then wave them in front of me and smell it that way. That lets me know bad off flavors, great flavors. But as the glass is drying over 10 minutes or so, you can smell everything. And it's amazing. It's so great to do, especially with somebody that doesn't drink that much or is trying to learn. And at the very end, when it finally dries out, you can taste everybody's tails. You can smell everybody's tails. from Jack's tails to my tails to you can smell them and they're very distinct for every distillery and it's an amazing way to really break down a whiskey.

So is it true when you wet your hands with the white dog that right at first you get kind of the ethanol and then as they start to dry you start to pick up the kind of the grain And then as they fully dried, that's when the yeast kind of comes out and you can smell the yeast a little bit, is that?

Yep, a little bit. And then you can smell the tails. The tails. And tails for me always smells like old moldy water. you know, really deep tails, like where you're, you know, not even whiskey's not coming out anymore or whatever. It's just like moldy, dirty water, you know, not dirty, but just old water.

Right. So now when you're cutting the tails, you're doing it during the process and you've got a temperature in mind or a proof in mind where you're cutting at.

We have a proof in mind and pretty much proof in how much we've collected, but proof is a big part of it. We know where we kind of want to cut and taste.

So Mike, you were talking before about you would push that button and you'd go to the bar or you'd have to go make a whiskey sale. and you get down that bourbon road as I like to call it, right? Right. What states are you in right now?

So we are in California. We just opened Kentucky. We just did a tasting in Kroger in Kentucky. We're in 27 stores in Kroger. We are here in Westport Whiskey and Wine. And then we just opened Texas. We just shipped pallets last week to Texas, a pallet and a half. I don't want to sound like we're shipping pallets. We sold 2,609 liter cases last year. We made the year before 2,609 liter cases. We sell everything we make. And then we're in some controlled states. Oregon reached out. We haven't even done anything. And they reached out. And they've bought about 20 cases in the last year, eight months. So controlled states can RFP and request for a proposal or price and special order it. We're in Wyoming that way. Virginia, I think we just started. We're in New York a little bit. And that's about where we are right now. I think it's eight or nine states with the controlled states.

So you're out there selling your whiskey and stuff, and you get to see a lot, right? A lot of the United States beforehand, I mean, you were talking about driving around and stuff. I do. And how you think and you get time to think. What's the bourbon culture to you?

Bourbon culture is amazing. The Kentucky bourbon is amazing. I love Kentucky bourbon. I didn't set out to make Kentucky bourbon. I set out to make Colorado bourbon, Colorado rye whiskey. I set out to make Colorado whiskey and I believe I've done that. The bourbon culture is funny because Probably, Kentuckians want to own bourbon. They're like, you can't make bourbon in Colorado. Yes, legally, you can. No, we don't make Kentucky bourbon in Colorado. We'll never. Don't want to. I love what Kentucky does. Then, Tennessee whiskey. a bourbon mash bill, but it's Tennessee whiskey. And Jeff Arnett's a dear friend. I've met him. And now I was texting him yesterday. He's great. Master distiller of Jack Daniels. But whiskey brings all kinds of great people together. And in bars, people start fighting on whiskey a lot of times, which is fine. But the culture is amazing. from when starting this and and not knowing anything and people reaching out to me to help me. It was amazing. And so that that culture is I love and and, you know, good food, good, good barbecue, good whiskey all goes together well. And and you learn a lot about life. You learn about people, you know, people don't ask enough of, where do you come from? And if you reach out and ask somebody where they come from, you will learn stories that you just never knew about that person, never thought that person had lived. And I think whiskey has a lot to do with that. The one thing that people don't understand is with whiskeys, some do, I think. But what I've learned is whiskey is like wine. You pop a bottle and you pour it out right then and start drinking it. It's going to be hard. It's going to be different. If you decant it, if you pour it into another crystal bottle or you just pop it and let it open up and air out, that whiskey is going to get so much better. It just starts opening up. I don't know that oxidizes, it just a little bit of alcohol evaporates and it just gets really good. And I think people don't do enough of that.

That's what I love about it. It is delicious. So we were talking earlier and you said one of your dear friends is Sam Elliott and your whiskey or your bourbons is going to be pretty famous here. It's on a pretty well-known show, right?

Yeah, The Ranch. So Sam, I've known for 30 years and he knew I was making whiskey and I see him almost monthly. My mom lives in California and is dear friends with Katherine, his wife, and I was with dinner with him two weeks ago. But he would never put it on the show if he didn't like it. And he He had tasted it and their prop guy called me, prop master and said, Sam's requested a case of your whiskey. And I'm like, awesome, amazing. So we sent it to him and it's been on a few of their episodes. It's my understanding season seven right now and episode number two, they're drinking it. And it's been very special that he did that for me. That's really great. I have another friend that's a cameraman on Silicon Valley, and it shows up in the background a little bit every once in a while. And then show when it opened last year or two years ago, the bottle was front and center next to one of the stars. And we got blown up on Facebook about it. And it's a really great because they were like, people like, do you know they drink? And I'm like, yeah, we. I've got some friends. It makes you like a proud papa, right? Yeah, it does. It really does.

Now, this rye is definitely one of my favorites. I have to be honest with you. I did have this a few, about a week ago for the first time.

In the distillery. In the distillery. Awesome. Yeah, so it was really nice. And you had the cast string version there as well. And I love that. So the cast strength is 291 Colorado Whiskey. So I started out the rye, did not have rye written on it, except for down small. people were getting confused. So we put rye on the bottle proof, the 101.7 proof, but I still wanted a Colorado whiskey. So the barrel proof of the rye is 291 Colorado whiskey. I think that is so great. So you're defining a category there.

Yeah. And even though it's a rye, it's your creation. It is a rye with some corn in it. It is.

So it's not like a Maryland rye. But yeah, it's 61% malt rye, 39% corn. Before I made whiskey, Thomas Handy was my rye that I liked. So Thomas Handy's high in corn as well. And so that's why mine is. Well, the malted rye makes it really special.

You can taste that in there. It really is nice.

Thank you very much. And yeah, this one won World's Best Rye in 2018 from Whiskey Magazine. And in 2016, the first time presenting it to Whiskey Magazine, it won America's Best next to Pikesville. And then Pikesville went on to win World's Best that year. But that was the first time presenting, and that was pretty amazing.

Well, I think when you taste this, you definitely know you're drinking a rye. And I'm a big fan of Pikesville. I like Pikesville rye. But sometimes, you know, it's very bourbonish. Right. Very bourbonish. This is clearly a rye. Thank you. It's a sweet rye. It's got a great nose and a great palate. In my opinion, the finish isn't quite as long as your bourbon, but almost.

Almost. And that could just be the barrel. Yeah, it could be. It really can. And yeah, every barrel tastes different, somewhat, slightly. When you put it in a glass and taste the bourbon or the rye, you know it's 291. That thread carries through.

Right. Yeah, the finish on the bourbon, I would categorize as long, lengthy.

Nice, thank you.

On the rye, I would say medium to long, but still long. So that's great. It's wonderful.

It's really a good pour, and you should be very proud of yourself. Thank you very much. Yeah, Mike, so we talked about drinks earlier. My Colorado barrel proof with Averna, a black Manhattan, is my drink. If I'm going to mix that with something other than lemonade and stuff like that. But if I'm having a Manhattan type drink, I make a black Manhattan with that. And it's barrel proof. And you can't have too many of them barrel proof. But it's a phenomenal drink.

Yeah.

Jim was drinking that last night. I was drinking Black Manhattan's with Aperol. Oh, Aperol. Try the Averna. Averna. Okay. It's really good that way.

I'll do that. Some dashes of bitters and that's about it.

So how much whiskey you got aging on your site right now?

So we have a thousand barrels about. And in your new facility, what will you be able to push out? Well, we'll be able to go up a lot more. So we're growing into this facility. It's kind of like when I went from the 300 square feet to 7,500. My still and everything, it's funny to look back at pictures because there's a barrel here, a barrel there, and there's a still set up. And there's just wide open space. And that's what's going to happen where we're moving. It will start out. The plan is to have four production lines at the very end, five years out from now. But right now, we'll start with one production line and we'll put up those 1,000 barrels. We should put up another 2,000 over the next year. I just got some barrel financing to be able to do that. It's a steep growth curve, but we don't make a lot right now. Nobody spills whiskey, but if somebody was spilling whiskey, Jack Daniels probably spills what we make in a year in a day, if not in a half a day. It's going to be a great expansion. Oh, we look forward to that.

And let me ask you about this, though. So you've basically been selling everything that you can make. You're maxed out. And you're going to be increasing your production. Will that allow you to have some extra aged products as well? Is that kind of in your future? That is the plan.

So to push it out, be aged longer. We've tasted some at two years, a little longer. It's amazing. We released some out of the tasting room. And it just gets better. And I understand that, but the business model, I bootstrap this. So, you know, it takes a lot of cash to put whiskey in a barrel and let it sit for longer than a year, you know, four or five, seven years. So we're headed that direction. We are definitely headed that direction. And yeah, and we have a bad guy and HR, Hi Rye coming out. These are special releases that come out once a year. Actually, Hi-Ry hasn't been out in two years. Hi-Ry is a Hi-Ry bourbon. It was a mistake. The distiller that works for me, Eric Jett, was freelancing for me while I was doing it my own but trying to grow. And he asked me something about the rye in a mash bill in the bourbon. And I said a number. And at the end of the day, he was putting numbers together. And he goes, they don't match. I go, well, you doubled the rye. He's like, you told me to. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right. So we finished it, put it in a barrel, came out. It's an incredibly balanced bourbon that's so good. So it got a label. And it's literally gold HR on it. And then bad guy was another recipe, was my third recipe. And I was, I sell 291 fresh whiskey, which is unaged bourbon to make cocktails with, to be able to have some cashflow originally. And American white spirit take the place of vodka rum or tequila. So I, that was my first recipe. And I was like, I haven't experiment. Let me experiment a little bit. So I decided I want to do a weeded bourbon mash. And so I did this weeded bourbon. It came off still. And I was like, that is incredible. And put it in a barrel. And it came out, named it bad guy. And it comes out every year. It's a phenomenal four-grain weeded bourbon.

Now, are these special releases going to make it into all the states or? Eventually. Eventually. Eventually.

I was going to say, why didn't Jim bring me some of that weeded whiskey back?

We can maybe figure that out. I don't have one with me, but we can figure it out.

Well, hey, the stuff that you brought us today is phenomenal. Hey, I wouldn't turn it away. I love it. Thank you so much.

Yeah. And we do an experimental line as well. So it's our E. And we have had six batches of it. Every batch is completely different from a rye that's the same recipe but cooked differently to 100% malt rye to some single malt. And then the latest is a barrel finish, E6. So you will always be using malted ryes in what you do? I am. I will. We talk about using some green rye, unmalted rye. But I really love that that was kind of a happenstance. And I didn't know enough about what I was doing to look for raw rye. And that, when I did the 100% malt rye, I realized how sweet malt rye was and how good it was. So I won't, I won't veer from that.

But that's what it makes it Colorado, right? I think so. Yeah.

Yeah. That's your, your whiskey, your way. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Uh, one of my sayings is hard made the Colorado way. And then another one is write it like you stole it, drink it like you own it. I love it. Yeah.

So Colorado, let's talk about your local market there. You guys are, you're self distributing? We are. Okay. So that's something you can do there here. It's a little tough. Right. And how is the market in Colorado for receiving bourbon whiskey?

Amazing. Yeah. You know, the craft came around and, and Stranahan's was the first crap. One of the first there's Pete street as well. And they go back and forth about who was first, but Pete Street makes a bourbon. Strand of Hands is a Scotch style whiskey, a malt barley whiskey. Very receptive. People want the newest, looking for the best. For us, it's been amazing. We're in over 600 accounts in Colorado. I have three salespeople that sell it all and deliver it all. And it's amazing because that allows us to keep that extra money to grow this like I want to grow it. And we're 95% of the whiskeys sold in Colorado at the moment. But in the next few years, hopefully that'll be like 50% in Colorado and the rest in other states.

Yeah, so I was just out there for a week and visiting family in Colorado Springs, but we ventured into Denver and we were out in the Breckenridge and we had a lot of places and every place I went into had your product on the shelf. That's awesome. You guys are doing a good job. Before we check out here a couple of things. I'd like to give you an opportunity to kind of talk about Future products that maybe we haven't discussed yet if there's anything that you'd like to talk about maybe Events you're going to be attending Certainly want to give you the opportunity to share how people get in touch with you Yeah. Your social media, your website, all that stuff. Because after hearing this, I think we're going to have a lot of listeners that are going to want to try and get a hold of your stuff. Wonderful. Yeah.

So you can reach us on Instagram at distillery291. Facebook, same. Our website's either distillery291.com or 291coloradowiskey.com. events. I'm at Hometown Rising right now. They have it in the Beyond Bar, so Beyond Kentucky type whiskies. So we're on the shelf there. You can have a cocktail or you can taste it neat. We are at Bourbon and Beyond as well next weekend. And the next one is Louder Than Life. I think that's the name of it. That's the big trio. Yeah. So we're in the Beyond Bar. So come see us. I'm there. I'm standing out in front of it most of the time, except for when there's an artist on stage that I want to hear. But I'm walking around the event. I'm branded. I got a branded t-shirt on. Come say hello. And then other products coming out. We make our rye and bourbon daily. Actually, we only produce twice a week right now. We're moving hopefully to five days a week. But we do experimental so like i said the label and we experiment and we have a couple of things that are in barrels that there's a weeded whiskey hundred percent weeded whiskey in there that we did a collaboration and so we made extra week. They took some of it and put it in a barrel with a bunch of other distilleries from Colorado. And they're going to release it. And the money goes to a charity, which is amazing. So we wanted to taste our just weeded whiskey in a barrel. So there's one of those. I don't know when it'll come out. It will come out when it's right. Do not release anything until I'm happy with it. And then there's a couple of single malt that's sitting there. We've tasted it. We're not super excited about it at the moment. So there's times that things won't ever get released. Sure. Got to keep trying. Yep. Got to keep trying. I love to experiment. But I also do love making my whiskey daily. Yeah.

Now, for our listeners, if they're out there on the Bourbon Road and they're out in Colorado Springs, you ever inside the distillery there working?

I am. I am. I'm there. If I'm not traveling, I'm there every day. And we're not open to the public. We're open Wednesday through Sunday. So Wednesday through Friday, 5 to 11, you can come in, do tastings, have a cocktail. You can book online for a tour for Saturdays. Saturday we're open 12 to 11, and then Sunday we're open 12 to 5. Come see us 1647 South Tejon Street in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

And if you're not there, Emily will be there. Emily's there.

Eric Jett will be there. Somebody will be there. We have amazing bartenders that know my story and can educate you on the whiskey and It's a lot of fun. It's a very small bar. I wanted it that way so that it was intimate. And then there's a little bit back room where you can sit. And when we move to a bigger space, the tasting room will get bigger so we can get more people in there.

All right. Well, Michael, it's been a pleasure having you on the show today. We really, I tell you, I really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule because you're out at the event today and you're kind of taking a little break for us. And we really appreciate that.

In the air conditioning here.

That's right. I'm glad to be here. Phillip's sweating it out.

Phillip is my VP of brand development and he's out there selling whiskey right now, sweating out there. So thank you guys. I really appreciate you having me. And we look forward to hearing from you again real soon in the future. I would love to. Thank you.

We do appreciate all of our listeners and we'd like to thank you for taking time out of your day to hang out with us here on the Bourbon Road. We hope you enjoyed today's show and if so, we would appreciate if you'd subscribe and rate us a five star with a review on iTunes. Make sure you follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at The Bourbon Road. That way you'll be kept in the loop in all the Bourbon Road happenings. You can also visit our website at thebourbonroad.com to read our blog, listen to the show, or reach out to us directly. We always welcome comments or suggestions. And if you have an idea for a particular guest or topic, be sure to let us know. And again, thanks for hanging out with us.