444. Colorado Craft: Unpacking the Terroir and Tradition at Laws Whiskey House

Oh friends, and welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Road Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Shannon. And I'm your host, Todd Ritter. We've got a great show for you today. So grab your favorite pour and join us.

Hey roadies, it's Diane Strong with Bourbon on the Banks Festival. We've got another amazing event coming your way this year. Be sure to join us at the half and I'll tell you a little bit more about the event taking place October 4th, 2025.

Todd and I are proud to have Smokies Lifestyle Cigars as the sponsor of this episode and as the official cigar of the Bourbon Road podcast. Our hosts and listeners alike enjoy the ultimate experience of premium cigars. Smoky's Lifestyle Cigars are where flavor and craftsmanship meet. Find out more during the halftime break and at smokyslifestylecigar.com. The Surgeon General warns that cigar smoking can cause lung cancer and heart disease and is not a safe alternative to cigarettes. The Hill House Bed and Breakfast, located in Loretto, Kentucky, is ready to be your bourbon country home away from home. Located less than 3 miles from Maker's Mark, the Hill House is convenient to Bardstown and the rest of the Bourbon Trail. The next time you visit Bourbon Country, choose comfort and convenience. Choose the Hill House Bed and Breakfast. Listen in at the break for more details or visit their website at thehillhousekontucky.com. Hello Noodle listeners and welcome back roadies. This is Jim Shannon and once again I am on the road traveling out west. I am in Denver, Colorado. Todd is not with me today. He's holding down the fort in Frankfort, Kentucky. We'll get him back on the show soon though. But today I've got a pretty exciting guest on the show. We're going to be drinking some whiskey. and we're going to be drinking his whiskey and talking about it. So this is a new distillery that has not been on the show featured before. Their bottles have been on the show probably a half a dozen times over the course of the Bourbon Road podcast. We've had them in on Various combination shows or drinking whiskey and they've always been gracious enough to send us a bottle from time to time And I certainly appreciate that So let me give a warm welcome to our laws of laws whiskey house in Denver, Colorado our welcome to the show Why thank you Jim. This is a pleasure Tell me a little bit about this room we're sitting in. This is fantastic.

I don't always get this kind of treatment when I'm on the road. Well, you're in luck. This is our new brand experience tasting room. We call it the Whiskey Sanctuary, and it's a long time coming. We've been trying to get this built for seven years. We finally were able to open it at the end of the year. I think December 21st, we finally got it open. And this is our new place to come to experience the Loz brand. Given what we do here now, we can take the whiskey from its elevated status of straight forward into something different in cocktails. Now a full upper echelon cocktail bar and just a great place to sit and experience the Loz brand.

It's a perfect location for us to do this recording. It's a pretty cushy chair. It's got a big couch next to us. The light's a little subdued. It's a beautiful, beautiful space here, and I'm sure your guests really enjoy it. Today, it's a podcast studio, and that works out for us. You have laid out four of your expressions for us to try today, and you certainly have more than just four expressions, but we have to keep it showworthy and keep it within a reasonable limit. Otherwise, well, it'd get kind of rough towards the end, I think. It might get really rough. But you've decided the order of what we're going to taste today and we are going to start off with what is it? It's our flagship four grain bourbon.

This is what we started with. This is what we wanted to make out of the gate. This is our kind of nod to American whiskey history. We're trying to be part of the fabric, fill in some of the white space in in the history and also in the taste varietals of American bourbon. So we're making this out of all four American mother grains, starting with corn, of course. It's about a 60% corn mash bill with 20% wheat, 10% rye, and then 10% malt. And all these grains that we're using are all heirloom varietal and have been around here in Colorado for quite some time. So we're using centennial white wheat, which is the wheat of the state, and it's a spring wheat. It's very different than a barbarian red or hard red. And then we're using SLV rye, which is only grown in the San Luis Valley, about three hours south of here. And we're using malt that is not just for conversion. So it's a scarlet variety and has lots of flavors. So when we go through the sip here, I want to tell you about the experience that you're about to have.

Oh, fantastic. Well, let's get straight to it. Cheers. has a beautiful color, really nice and golden.

So you get a lot out of our barrels, given that we're a mile high or in the front range of the Rocky Mountains. It's not just temperature, we're an upper mountain desert here. So we definitely get the heat in the summer, which is an important part of getting the the liquid into the wood and out of the wood. But we also have very rapid and volatile barometric pressure swings, which make our barrels pump like a heart. So very early on, they're going to get pretty deep color. So all those things that are great from the wood are going to be present in our whiskey early on. So it gets to be there as it matures. The infusion part of the maturation, we're getting a lot out of the barrel. That's anybody who makes whiskey in Colorado.

So a little bit about this one. What's the proof of what we're tasting right now? So this is a 95 proof.

We are very into having proofs fairly high. And that's so you can choose where you want to drink them. Plus, the closer they are to the cast strength, the more robust the flavor profile, as you know. unadulterated flavor.

Well, it has a wonderful nose on it. Definitely very grain forward, kind of has this nice malty, little bit of a malty depth to it. That's the scarlet.

So when you take the sip, the journey is basically the sweetness at the upfront, which is the corn, followed by this kind of penny metallic bite, which is the rye, which is the second whiskey that we're going to try, our straight 100% rye whiskey. And then it falls into like more of a baking spice, a little bit of orange, some fruit there. That's all from the wheat. And then it finishes very nutty and the nutty finishes of scarlet barley and it'd be like walnuts, hazelnuts. So everything's contributing to this. So we made the four grain and this took a while. to get it to this point, actually. So because we didn't want it just to be, if you're making a four grain, you don't just want it to taste like a rye bourbon. When rye is a bully grain, it takes over very quickly. So to get it so you could have all four American mother grains in every sip took some time. Yeah. Mostly in cooking technique.

So let me go back and sort of recap. If I remember correctly, it was 60, 20, 10, and 10. So you kept the wheat fairly high in this so that you would get that nice soft upfront kind of palette to it. And it brings in just this wonderful, wonderful serial note. I like it a lot. This is good. I'm glad. I'd never heard penny metallic before. That's kind of cool.

Well, that's just how I describe it. Like, I like that kind of thing is just how it presents as the grain flavor. We're really about grain flavors. And we often get that, well, that means that it's young. There's not anything in this that's under four years, and there's 10 year in this. So there's a lot of vertical depth and age in this. And we were looking to add layers through that process.

Yeah, I do notice that it's kind of well balanced on the pallet. You sort of get a nice impression all the way across from the front all the way to the back. Tends to hang a little bit in the back. You definitely notice the rye. Even at 10%, you notice the rye. And there's a lot of high rye bourbons out there now. And you really get the rye on this one, even with only 10% in it, which is... Yeah.

Nice. At the beginning, it took over. So the very first rounds of making this as we got to about two years, we noticed that the rye was way more prevalent. We weren't getting that balance. And we weren't getting the four American mother grains. We're like, OK, if it's going to punch up at 10%, how do we do? We didn't want to drop it anymore as far as its percentage. So instead, my yodo taught me how to make this out of who lives in Bardstown and was the master distiller. I think Barton's or old Tom when he finished and you know, 40 years out of this, his name is Bill Friel. You guys probably might even know him. He's a great guy. He's like definitely my Yoda. Never answered a question I asked him. He just asked me more questions until I answered it. So he was awesome. But I came to Bill with that and he's like, hmm, well, Here's one way we could address this. So instead of putting all the grains in at the temperatures that maximize their flavor, we're basically gelatinization point. It's like, let's take the rye and cook it with the corn. So we have to take it up to a much higher temperature. And by doing that, we denature some of the rye so it falls in line. Wow.

Wow. Well, let's jump in the way back machine here, and let's talk about how things got started. Well, how things got started with you personally, and then how laws came to be.

Sure. Anyone you talk to on any of these shows, I'm sure they'll tell you how passionate they are about this, and I can echo that for sure. But I would use a different word, obsessed. So this is something of an obsession for me for a very long time. and it was a product of a time where I wanted to make a change in what I did for a living and I didn't want to die at my desk and I wanted to do something that was more hands-on, that was, I don't know, had a level of artistry or and authenticity, and I wanted to do it the right way too. I wanted to make it from scratch. And so I drank whiskey since I was 16. Now people get freaked out by that because the 21 year thing here in America, but I grew up in Canada, so 16 was not a big deal. So a little less. less of a problem there. But Jack Daniels, Old Forrester, Wild Turkey were my favorites growing up. And I don't like Canadian whiskey. I like American whiskeys. I like because there's an authenticity behind them. And there's standards behind them, which in a lot of places, there is no standards for whiskey.

That is so true. We definitely take our whiskey a little more seriously, but some of the locations around the world that's making whiskey, they've got a lot more history than we do. They go way, way back, so things kind of progressed over time, I think. We had an opportunity very early on, I think, as a nation to regulate our whiskey production, which is great.

Well, I think we did it because it was 50% of the federal government's tax revenue. There was definitely a financial reason to do that. So we like the history. Five years before we started this in July 4th will be our 14th anniversary of making whiskey here. Five years before that, we did all the research. So read everything I could find. And back then, that's 20 years ago almost, there was no literature or anything. The stuff we have now is so much better. But reading all that, getting the history is a very important part of this because it is tied to the development of the country. It's tied to people. Like the Bottle and Bond Act, right? Very first consumer production law in US history. I just love that irony.

And when it comes to the bottle and bond whiskey, you guys kind of pioneered that in Colorado. For sure, yeah.

It was part of our plan from the beginning because, again, it ties us into the history, and it means something. People go, well, they don't really enforce it that way. I'm like, no, no, no, it's a standard. It's about the level of standards that you're making something to. We're not buying this from somebody and putting our label on it. or blending it with something else and putting our label on it. We make every drop of this. So we wanted to make sure that we were following highest standards possible. And by doing that, the Bottle & Bond came right to the forefront immediately. So yeah, we're the first Bottle & Bond whiskey in Colorado. We're the first Bottle & Bond four-grain in the country, followed pretty quickly by E.H. Taylor. Ours was four years, theirs was 10. We're not going to get into that. But yeah, there's definitely a difference. But for us, that was important, not just to be first, but to bring back the attention on that. Because I think it still matters to consumers today. Where it came from, you know where it came from. So many things that we consume today, you have no idea where they came from.

So it's important to us. I'm just sitting here just enjoying the finish on this. It's medium to long with, like you said, a nice nutty character on the back end. I really like that. It's good stuff. I've always been a fan of four grains. There's not a huge number of them out there. I mean, as far as the mash bill goes, it seems to be more of a carefully done expression. People take more time and they consider more the quantity of each grain that's going into it and how it's going to be prepared. Whereas with a bourbon, you might just go a little bit faster at it and just put it together. And yeah, you still consider it, but four grains take some planning, I think.

They definitely do. And again, there was some moving back and forth, two or three, 4% either way at the beginning. But it turned out at this level to be what we were looking to present. We use goalposts, though. So a lot of people have whiskey collections. I had about 700 whiskies, I think, at my peak. And it wasn't really for collecting, it was really just a library for our whole team to go, OK, let's go through these and figure out what we like about these other ones that have been around a long time or just brand new in the market and talk through, is this Mash Bill? Is this Technique? Is it where it's aged? Try to dial in on those sort of things. It was really important to us. And then to come up with the Mash Bill, working with Bill, he's like, well, what do we want it to taste like? I'm like, well, I have a very distinctive I deal what I want to taste like. I want it super approachable and easy to drink like Maker's Mark, which is a classic, right? Everyone who's ever got into bourbon has always started near Maker's Mark. And it's a great weeded bourbon, right? But it's pretty, its layers are different. It's like not as complex, but it's so approachable. That was important to me. And then the next goalpost was, four roses, single barrel, which had lots more layers of complexity plus, and the ones I liked the best were the lower corn recipes. So you had things kind of pull through. And then the four grain itself, really the inspiration from that was the 2005 released from Woodford Reserve, the four grain under the. And I thought that was really grainy. And you could tell a lot of the whiskey came from the goose necks instead of from the pot stills at Old Forester. And these things were, I'm like, these were transformational for me. And I'm like, this is what I like. This is what I'm trying to create here. Cause it's not a lot of like this out there. Little less sweet. and more grain forward. This is a value-added farm product. It should taste like it's substrate to some degree.

You definitely tell you take great pride in what you do and certainly have a passion for this. Oh man, yeah. Let's switch to the rye and then we can talk a little bit more about how you took your passion and turned it into where we are today. Yeah, that sounds good.

So the rye whiskey is our secondary initiative. As soon as we got the four grain dialed in, we were making it in more of a methodical way. We moved to, this is somewhat geeky, maybe artistic, but I wanted to take the four grain, which is all cooked together, and then dissect it or deconstruct it and say, okay, this is made the same way, the same grains, but we want something as close to 100% as we can get. so that we can sit down and put four glasses or so in front of you. We even make a bonded corn whiskey. And we go, OK, you can try all these and you can pick up all those notes from the four grain. And it's a teaching tool for education on what grains taste like or present like in a whiskey. especially heirloom grains that are grown for flavor, not for yield. So these all come from family farms, all of ours. We don't buy it through a district. They come right from the farm itself.

So what's the primary difference, I get a little geeky here for a minute, between like an heirloom grain and something like a traditional number two yellow dent or something like that.

The dent's pretty hard to get too far off of In corn today, corn's been modified so many times, right? And it can grow anywhere. That's what it's been modified to do. It can grow in all 50 states. We believe in terroir of grains. So where they're grown gives them a particular flavor. But our even the dent, we use dent one. So the only difference there is that it's still feed corn grown for that purpose. And it's just cleaned to a higher degree. Yeah. So different screens, all the little smaller grains will come into it. So you get pretty lush kernels. The rest are, they do contribute a lot more to distinctive flavors, right? So rye pulls the most from the soil of any grain. So what we're about to try, let's have a good... Cheers. So again, this is a 95 proof, but it's 100% rye grain. Half of it's malted, half of it's raw. And we're going for there is you want to pick up the earthy notes from the raw that's pulling from the soil from where it's grown at 7,600 feet above sea level in a valley. It used to be an ancient sea bed in Colorado. This tastes like where it comes from.

So this is a San Luis Valley. This is that area south of Pueblo, way down where it's kind of like a shallow depression in the earth there in between mountain ranges. You've been there. I'm familiar with it. OK. That's a cold place, right? I mean, it's pretty chilly there, doesn't it? Yeah, that's the cool part. It kind of settles in. I don't know what that's called, a temperature inversion, right? Where the cold air follows in and gets trapped by the warmer air.

What's up high? So it gets hot. Like again, this is all, the whole state is upper mountain desert. Yeah. We were pretty dry. I just came from Tennessee the last three or four days and it rained and lightly rained and it's interesting for Ross going there because we don't get that. It never rains for like two or three days that we're out here. Except this week. This week, yeah. It's great for the grass and great for all the gardens that are going in.

Put nice white tops on all the mountains again.

Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. But in that area, it's so far up. So in the day, it gets super hot during the summer. And then at night, it gets colder. So those swings makes the plant struggle. Plus, it is still a desert. But water table is, I think, four feet down. And so the roots have to start getting very sandy soil. You're high in calcium. All these things matter. People talk about heirloom grains, and they think, oh, it's the grain. It's the grain and then it's the conditions it's grown in. So it's really, when we talk about our whiskey, you can go grain to glass, I would say it's dirt to glass. So the dirt matters that it's grown in. And that's where a lot of the high end barley for the state has grown for like cores and things like that. Like because the conditions allow for the highest quality grains that allow for malting to be successful.

I love whiskeys that use rye malt. I really do. So you have a contracted malting house you use that's very...

They're like family. Cody Family Farm and Colorado Malting, they have a malting company on site. And they can make you, they can malt you pretty much anything. Mill it, you name it, they can malt it. And they can modify it too. So it doesn't matter much in whisky in the sense that, you know, the well-oven kind of color of a malted roasted grain doesn't come through, right? But the modification of that barley or the wheat through the roasting, it comes through in a pot still distillation. Maybe not so much in column still, but for a pot still, it definitely comes through.

Well, I know that we've got a lot of listeners out there that love malted ryes. And this is kind of one foot in each camp. This has got a little bit of, you know, normal rye and then raw rye, I don't know if you call it that, and then malted rye. And you get kind of the best of both worlds. Definitely. And really a nice pour. Now, what does this bottle, 750 milliliter of your rye, what does this run for MSRP typically across the country?

Like 55 to 59.

And your bourbon we had earlier?

Same price. Same price. Two flagships for the same price.

Okay, 55 to 59, we're talking about a 95 proof expression, both of them. Yeah.

Made with expensive grain. That's what I say to some people, like, what do you mean by that? I go, well, the grains... we're paying two to three times the commodity prices are for the grain because we want to keep those family farms alive. And so this is a very important part of our story, right? This is where we go back to the land and this is really believe that whiskey is a value-added farming product. So we're tied to those farms. The whiskey sister supply in Burlington provides the corn and homestead, both these places are homestead farms. So from way, way back, many generations in the family.

Well, the listeners are saying, all right, so you've been saying he's going to tell us how he got started. We haven't gotten to that yet, because we keep talking about the whiskey. But it's really good. And now I can understand why we're talking about it. But let's talk about how you took your passion and you started this business.

Yeah, so I used to work in oil and gas finance. So I grew up in Alberta, Canada. Been here in the US for 23 years. And US citizen now for the last three or four years. But I started out. looking at something that I had to have a lot of energy for. I never had a job in my whole life I didn't love. So if I didn't love it, then I'm like, I gotta go find something that I love. So that was an important driver for me. So this was a nice next step. And I'm like, well, how do I do this? Because I don't have a history or a family history of this, although I think my wife's parents and mine were RCMPs. They seized a lot of stills in northern Alberta. But it's a different kind of thing, right? We don't really have a history on soil. How do you learn this from nothing, really? And it's like, oh, well, let's start with the basic fundamentals of this. And as Bill always tells me when I get really technical, I go, what about this? Or how do we? He's like, hold on, son. He's like, this is an industry that was built by people with a grade eight education. It ain't about the chemical formula, which it might be about now. It's about the art, the soul, all these things that can be learned. And someone passing on those things through how they make those cuts, how they make their mash, because it's about that. It's like being a baker or something like that. There's a lot of technicals to it, but you can do it through more heuristics. And so that was tough for me to learn, being a finance person. you know, very familiar with formulas and so even our very first distillation run, our first spirit run. We're standing there and you know, it starts, you know, temperatures rise, pots of vapor, temperatures converge, starts to flow. I'm so excited. And anyone who's done this before, you know, the heads are the heads and they, they, you know, they're heads. They're not good. You know, aldehyde and methadone, methadone, things like that. You're like, ah, terrible, terrible. And it starts to sweeten up on you. So I'm like, ah, excited. And then I'm like, ah, okay, feels getting sweeter. What do we do here now? Like, when do I make this cut? And he's like, listen, son, it's your whiskey. Make your own damn cuts. I'm like, what? So my first foray into this was, again, I went back to math. So I'm like, OK, this is the charge. This is the proof of the whiskey that's in the still. If I assume 5% is a head's cut, this is what it would be, given it's flowing at 150. And I just calculated it out on my phone. OK, now I'm prepared to do that. He just watched and shook his head. He's like, what was that? I'm like, well, this is the one I have to go back to. He said, no, son, you got to keep tasting it, tasting it, and feeling, taste it, put it on your hand, feel how slippery it is, and then make the cut there. It's like, this is an important part of making American whiskey. And it's important because you mentioned earlier, make whiskey in all different areas of the world. is tied to where it comes from. And that should be part of it. And I think in America today, just like Kentucky and Tennessee are very focused and the primary place we get American whiskey, that's gonna change. Well, not the fact that it's gonna be primary, it's still gonna be mostly there, but all the things from like Colorado, upstate New York, Texas, are all gonna have their own distinctive And that's because they're going to come from a different part of the country. We're going to become like Scotland.

And we've seen that. It's happening right now. It has been happening for a while and it's just, it's submitting in that idea that regional brands or regional... Matters. Tastes and palates. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

That's what we were going for. Like, OK, well, this is really interesting this way. But I also think that what makes, say, American whiskey, I like it better. I'm not going to call better or worse. That's all personal preference. But when I have Japanese whiskey, it's very exacting. It's like this, then it goes to this, and then this. And I think that makes it lack soul. American whiskey has soul because of these kind of transitional, something like call that a flaw. But the transitional stuff is what gives American whiskey its soul. So making those cuts is important.

A lot of the early distillers were farmers converting their crops to whiskey. And the gentlemen farmers, the ones who were more well-to-do, actually had their slaves making it. So, I mean, it's definitely something that is not, or doesn't have to be, I guess is the best way to say it, doesn't have to be scientific. Doesn't have to be.

In fact, removing the scientific part of it, I think, makes it. Again, more wholesome. Because here's the thing, we've had these discussions over the 14 years, like, oh, we like this. Let's do a mass spec on it. And then we know all this. I'm like, oh, that's great, guys. So we'll say, this has this, this and this. Now what are we going to do about that? They're like, what do you mean? We don't know where that comes from. So this is really great. You can make sure there's no poisons in it or something like that. That's primarily when most of the bigger disorders are doing these chemical analysis on it to make sure that it's within spec and doesn't happen. It's clean.

It doesn't have contamination.

That's right. Yeah, exactly. But realistically, you can't really build it from the lab out, in my opinion.

Yeah. All right. So with a few minutes remaining in the first half, you bought a location, you bought a still.

Yeah, so we spent a bunch of time. We wanted to own where we were from. That was important, too. So we bought the building that you can see across the parking lot here. So we're in a nice, cool place with our brand experience in the distillery all at once. We have another building across the tracks where we have our rick house and our bottling and all that kind of thing. You got to get that first. And then my wife's an MBA accountant, so she's really good at paperwork and things like that. So she wrote through and got the DSP. So we didn't hire a lawyer. We knocked it out ourselves. It's a very interesting process, that alone. So we got the DSP, and then we Bill showed up, and we're like, okay, let's run this equipment. And there's just this thing about it where you're like, ah, it's so great to finally run this, and then everything doesn't work. Nothing. The inlet valve for the cooker wasn't large enough. We couldn't heat the water up. So we had a foam vent dome, and they come out and they put up a larger inlet valve. And so we had all these things. Everything breaks. But at the same time, you learn so much by things that don't go right. And that's a pretty important part of the process. So we started making it. I'd make 10 barrels a month. And I'd come in at 4 AM, get it rolling, get it to a point, pitch yeast is ready. And then I'd leave earlier than that. And then my wife would come down and pitch the yeast in it and move it into a fermenter. That's how we made it.

I love these stories. I love these stories. You know, grassroots startups. I just think it's amazing. And then to see where you are today. And we'll get into that in the second half. You know, this is an amazing place. And when I pulled up, I was like, oh, wow, this is nice. But, uh, yeah, let's, let's continue sipping on our rye and, uh, we'll take a short break here. And when we come back, we have two more of your expressions and more about, uh, law's whiskey house, where it is today and where you're going. So stick around folks. We will be right back.

Hey roadies, it's Diane Strong with Bourbon on the Banks Festival again. We have another amazing event this year, but we want you to come early because we've got a lot of events leading up to the festival. Starting on Thursday, we've got another mixology with master mixologist Heather Wibbles on the Bourbon Bell and O.H. Ingram. Leading into Friday, we have got Peggy No Stevens. She's back with another bourbon pairing and a lesson called The Stave is the Rage. It's going to be amazing. Limestone Heritage Distilling is going to be bringing in three single barrels. You're going to learn a lot. We've got the VIP coming back and this year we are celebrating women in bourbon. This year, Bourbon on the Banks Festival promises to be even better than ever. We've already got more than 70 distilleries that are going to be there. More than anything, I need to encourage you to get your tickets as soon as possible. They're selling fast. Some of them are already sold out. If you want to come this year, please get your tickets. We don't want to miss you on October 4th in Frankfurt, Kentucky on the banks of the amazing Kentucky River.

Few things pair better together than a fine whiskey and a premium cigar. In Smoky's lifestyle cigars are where flavor and craftsmanship meet. Their exclusive collection is meticulously hand rolled from aged tobacco sourced from the Dominican Republic. Revel in the artistry that only decades of experience can bring. The owner, with over 10 years of cigar mastery, curates blends that capture the essence of family tradition and innovation. Embrace the journey and indulge in a harmonious symphony of Smokey's Lifestyle Cigars, an experience truly beyond compare. Find out more at SmokeysLifestyleCigar.com. When you're traveling the Bourbon Trail, location and comfort is everything. That's why I recommend making the Hill House Bed and Breakfast your home away from home. Located in the heart of Bourbon Country, the Hill House Bed and Breakfast is less than five minutes from the Maker's Mark Distillery in Loretto, Kentucky, giving you easy access to the Bardstown Distilleries and all points of the Bourbon Trail. The owners, Cheryl and Jim, offer four comfortable and cozy rooms along with a gourmet hot-plated breakfast every single morning. And when you return from a long day of fun, it's time to enjoy a bit of the Bourbon Trail nightlife. Relax on the large outdoor patio, complete with a blazing chiminea and solo stove, or curl up on the sofa and chairs, put a record on the turntable, and relax with snacks and fruit in front of the gas fireplace. An evening at the Hill House is a perfect time to raise a bourbon glass full of cheer in the company of family and friends. We know you'll enjoy your stay at the Hill House Bed and Breakfast as much as we did. Find out more at TheHillHouseKentucky.com All right, listeners, welcome back. We've got Al Laws here with Laws Whiskey House. In case you pause the episode at halftime and you're coming back and you're like, what was I listening to? Well, we're sitting in the tasting room here. Actually, what's this room called? It's called the Whiskey Sanctuary. Whiskey Sanctuary at Laws Whiskey House in Denver, Colorado. In the first half, we tasted through their four grain bourbon. and their St. Louis, San Luis Valley Rye. Fantastic whiskeys, both in the $55 to $59 range. Very nice green forward whiskies with a lot of balance, palette, a lot going on. Nice finishes. Really enjoyed both of them. even out of high recommendation and that our listeners should probably give you a try if they haven't already. Definitely. We've had you on the show a few times as far as the bottles go, but we've never had sort of a dedicated episode to Law's Whiskey House. And Al, it's just tremendous to have you here. You've poured up another one for us here in the second half.

Yeah. Coming off the rye, we're going to go into another bourbon, but it's a finished bourbon. So a lot of people really are interested in this for sure. We have had a finishing program for quite a while, and we started out with, well, not without a lot of nerves when you have, we used three-year-old bourbon at the time. And we would put it into these finishing barrels. And we don't know what's going to happen, really. So we always had to have a null hypothesis of, we're going to do this because of this. And we are looking for this in order to do that. Because we're like, hey, we don't have a lot of barrels. This is like, we could wreck this and have to redistill it. So we've got to be really careful here. So one of the first ones we did was cognac. We'd like the, it picks up the kind of appley notes in our bourbon and we think that it accentuates it. So our idea was this fills in certain gaps in the bourbon that make it a much more, I don't know, just more fuller expression just to finish it in these casts. We were able to get these casts through by Vicard in France and we started out Again, a lot of trepidation when you're young and this, this is expensive. And we put it into this barrel, three years old, we're gonna let it sit for like six months. And we were trying it every other week. I'm like, okay, all right, we don't want it to go too far. We don't know. This is where I said, we're not experts in this. We're learning as we go. And we're trying everything and we're probably overthinking a lot of things, but we do this. The first round, it's like, oh my God, six months, it's good, let's put it out. 200 bottles, sold quickly through our other tasting room we used to have. And we're like, wow. The difference here though, or the difference then even was, it tasted like bourbon with maybe like a cognac float on it, right? So there was definitely separation between the base whiskey, our flagship four grain, and then what the cognac barrel was imparting on it. So we're like, ah, okay. Do we like that? Folks like that. We immediately thought, well, this could be better. We have better integration. So let's go for a year. So the second time we did it, we let it go for a year. Less nervous after our first experience. And so we're like, okay, this feels pretty good. And it integrated better. So we're like, that sold very quickly too, it was gone. So we're like, okay, let's do two barrels of next time. And then we got to do a bigger discussion on, well, we're picking these finishing barrels based on a theory or thesis of what it's going to add or what it's going to do and what we're looking for and kind of flavor profile. Again, we had the library, we've gone through this. I like cognac, I like probably armagnac better. It's more of a whiskey person's thing. So we're like, okay. What is cognac? Like, oh, well, it's a great base to split. We want to define it that way. How do they make this? And it's really about blending. So it's blend, blend perfection, right? So we're like, well, why couldn't we do some kind of modified version of that, kind of more like a Solera if you're in Spain, I guess. And so that's what we call it. So, well, how will we do this? I'm like, well, we'll just layer in different rounds of four grain aged in and cognac cast. We just layer those in and then we'd put that up, take us a year or so to get enough volume and they would all integrate. And then it's like, oh yeah, but that's going to be in stainless steel. Hmm, it doesn't, it's not alive and it's in stainless steel. So we're like, well, how could we add to this? How could we add another layer of like, you know, something that's alive. We're going to make it sort of like, oh, well, And then Ellen Royer, who's a good friend of ours, she says, oh, I can get you one of those fooders. And I'm like, I don't know what a fooder is. And he's like, well, there's like three of them being decommissioned. They're 50 years old. And these ones are 1,600 gallons. We can get, it'd be hard to finish it for you and send it over to you. And I'm like, that was very expensive. So our accountants went, what? And we're like, ah, well, here's what we want to do. This is not for one thing. It's like a continuous thing for us. So we got that approved. And we got this thing over here. Took us two and a half years to fill it. We had to recuperate a few times because it would dry out. It's very dry here. So we have to clamp down the bands. We have to like sand it off again. And then we had to build a new head for it at one point. But it took two and a half years. So these things, so every six months we would put You know, some bourbon for six months age and cognac casserole we first bought and then we buy more and more and more. So now the process to go into the fooder is at least three-year-old bourbon, then a year in a cognac barrel. and then it goes into the fooder and it continues to integrate. So today, the one we're trying right now is our fourth iteration that came out last fall. It only comes out in the fall. We only harvest like 30 to 40% of the fooder and then we add to it again. So the base of this is now like eight years old, and we're adding four to it each time and we're only taking like a third out.

I love the idea. I love the idea of the Solera process. I think it's great. And this fooder, it's obviously made of wood. It's made of oak. Yeah, it's French oak. So the whiskey is staying in oak, touching oak for the full period of time. Yeah, and it's breathing. And who knows how long some of that whiskey has been in that fooder. I mean,

Right now, there's some of the molecules that are in it. Some of it's 12, 13 years old. Fantastic. But it changes every year. It gets richer. But the main thing that happened over the last three or four years is that the integration is amazing. So it isn't like cognac float on top. It's in the whiskey now. And it's a much richer thing. This is a whole process for us. It's an important thing for us. And it only comes out once a year. They're fully married at this point. They're very nice.

Oh, that's nice. You definitely get the cognac. You can definitely get the sort of distant sort of grape note. For sure.

And the card can build us in there. So we're using 300, 400 liter X cognac casks. So these are the big boys. They're big. Yeah. Then they also make 200 liters.

Yeah.

And they'll, they basically deconstruct all cognac barrels and rebuild them in American kind of size format. So it fits our racks better. Plus they'll put an American bung in it so we can use all of our standard things. And they can actually insert new French oak staves into it if we want. We haven't done that yet, but it's on the list. To bring that new fresh nuttiness into it. Just something else.

Yeah.

Yeah. Wow. And the census is an evolving thing. It's alive. The food is alive and it continues to produce something different every year. It's a beautiful whiskey. And what was the proof on this? This is at 95. This is 95 as well. We've actually debated that as well. Like, well, maybe we should keep, put this at a hundred. It's, it's in the footer. Like now if we pulled from it over across the tracks, it would be like 104.

So that is a wonderful palette on it. That is so nice. It's, um, it's rich, has a fruity note to it. Fruity, nutty, has some depth. I love it. A little dry, but in a nice way. Yeah, but in a nice way. Yeah.

Because we're 60% corn and 40% flavor grain, our whiskey is almost across the board, nice and dry.

Oh, this is great for sipping. I wouldn't mind having this with a cigar, actually. It would go great with a cigar. It does go great with a cigar. That's good stuff. What are we looking at MSRP on this one? This is in the $80, $79.99. Okay. This is a more seldom release that you do. Is it on cadence? Once a year.

Comes out usually October.

October. Does your distributor go through their stocks pretty quick?

they do and we don't send them a lot. So it goes online. So our fulfillment partner sells it online. That's the best way to get it outside of Colorado.

Yeah. And, and people who come and visit your, um, your facility here can, can pick it up in the shop. Yeah. Okay.

A lot of the stuff we make, a lot of it goes to here. Yeah. Make it more special. We've reeled in trying to put everything everywhere all at once. Instead like, okay, well, if this is going to say Illinois, they're only going to get 10 six packs and it's going to go to specific stores. It might put it in the glass case or something. Oh, that's really good.

Yum yum. Okay, so you were operating in your original facility over here, and I did get a tour of the whole place, including the new portion here, but next door, and I guess it's not really next door anymore because they're kind of connected. They're attached, yeah. They're attached, but you had your, sort of your, your tasting room and tour experience and everything was all in one building at that time. Correct. And you started out with a single 500 gallon pot still and then a number of fermenters, which kind of limited your capacity. I think you said 10 barrels. Yeah.

Well, we can. Capacity is very interesting, again, as a finance person. We're at a point now where we're running at a much slower level. Industry is what it is right now. But we used to keep everything hot, right? So everything was full all the time so we could create the most of most everything on it. And if you run it 20, 22 hours a day, you can get a lot out of that. Problem when you only have one still and we very connected or belief, our belief system relies on pot stills. We're not interested in the column solution. It makes great whiskey. That makes, it makes it really fast. We're interested in, you know, cooked on grain for a minute on grain, everything we make sour mash. And then the first run being on grain the whole eight hours. And so that's imparting one for a grain flavor. I think it changes the mouth feel and it improves a lot of things we think. And then being on, you know, being in the pot still and the cycling of that through the spirit run.

I guess, you know, when you're sitting there with a single 500 gallon pasta, you're like, okay, we've made all this. Now we've got a strip, strip, strip, strip, strip, strip, strip, spirit.

Yeah. Four strips, spirit runs. Four strips, spirit run. Then we got through that and we're like, okay, we're at capacity. We need to replace a lot of this equipment because We'd worn it out. We ran it, we ran it pretty hard. So we would, you know, like, what's the horse thing? Like put it away wet. Everything was always, always running. So we wore out condensers, we wore out all these things. So we were like, Hey, we wore out a boiler. So we had to like upgrade and take it to a different level. And that's what we have today through two steps we've, we can make. I don't know, 300 or 400 barrels a month. We're making like 50 now. But we can make that much. And with a small capital infusion, we can take that to 5, 600 a month.

And what's the size of your current stripping still? It's 2,000. Yeah, so that's a big upgrade. Yeah.

And you still have your 500 gallon for doing spirit. Yeah, every drop of our whiskey went through that 500. Yeah. And we keep fixing it, and we've The copper gets eaten through the process. It doesn't get eaten evenly. It gets eaten in spots. So we're constantly fixing it.

And Vindome's a part of that?

Oh yeah, they're the best. If you're making American whiskey, you've got to be using Vindome still.

Well, this is a wonderful whiskey to sit here and sip. I'm really enjoying it. This is something that is a little bit special. So I think, you know, you pick this bottle up, you treat your guests every now and then to this and say, this is something I want you to try. You really need to try this.

Yeah. And it's not like we get caught in these debates and turn like, oh, we should make more. No, I'm not here to make more. You get one bottle. You shouldn't be able to buy a case of this and you're like, you can, but like we want you to buy one every year and maybe have some of the residuals from the prior year. So you can try each of them and see how it's changing. That's the geek in us. Like that's.

Well, I mean, you want that you want them to have your four grain bourbon in your in your San Luis Valley, right? Sort of. That's what they're drinking neat. That's what they're making cocktails out of. That's the everyday bourbon. That's what they're grabbing. And then once in a while, and they got some special friends over there, pouring your solar finished and finished. Yeah. So fantastic. All right. Well, shall we move on? Let's go to something super special.

So every year, we produce something that we consider super unique and is always part of how we, as a brand, as a village, are learning. So this started out as kind of extra age stuff for a small company like us. So they're called origin spirals. And so at the beginning, we wanted to try something that was going to take a long time, but we wanted to do this. So after we had a bunch of stuff that was over two years old, we took 24 of those barrels and we married them together. So we dumped them, married them. And then we re-barreled them in the same barrels. So basically created a batch. So we picked up nuances across what the batch would have in it. And then every one of the spirit runs that we had done in the first six months, at least one of the barrels came from there. This is complicated, right? Yeah.

Actually, no, it sounds very intriguing. I mean, I'm not sure I've heard of that being done before. That's pretty cool.

So this is how this started. So Origins, and then we were at the point where we'd been running for over two years, and we don't even have a label. We haven't picked a bottle. We haven't done any of that, and we don't have any money for that. So we're like, what are we going to do? Well, we're going to take these barrels, and we're going to sell them to my friends. So we sold them for $10,000 a piece. And then they could do whatever they wanted with them. We finally made them all, harvest them in the fall of 23. They were 12 years old. And then we're not leaving them around. People harvested them at four, some harvested them at six, and some of them did partials and partials all the way along. But we always had four of these barrels for ourselves. So we took 160,000 or so. We designed a bottle. We have a custom made bottle, right? That was important to me. And then we designed the labels and had all that. So we spent that money on getting our brand kind of established. In the meantime, we have this really unique, interesting thing. Somebody has been batched. So it has all these different layers. And I'll tell you, along the way, at the beginning, we would choose different cooking techniques. We also use different yeast. So I tried Belgian yeast strains. I tried. like champagne yeast, and then ale yeast. I like ale yeast the best. That's primarily bread yeast, ale yeast, all kind of same thing. That's what most people use. We tried all these things. So in This Origins Married Batch is all this stuff. We could not, this is basically what we call unattainable. I can't recreate it. You can never recreate it. I can't recreate it. And also because, as my wife would remind you, is like, my notes are all over the place. So we end the month, she's like, well, I got to file this report. I'm like, OK, well, what do we make? Let me back into that. Because my notes are not linear. They're all over the thing. And she's like, well, what is this? Don't worry about it. That's what I think. So it's not something you could recreate now. But it was also before we had started cooking the rye with corns. It was a very heavy rye. We made, I'd say, less judicious tails cuts. I wanted a heavy back that would stand up to a lot of age. Because you just take hearts of hearts, you're not gonna stay out of the barrel. Especially if you got a char 3 barrel, we're using char 3s. All from independent state of company. All, this is something that people always ask us, if you're a small company, they're like, oh, what mini barrel? And I only use mini barrels. We only use 53 gallons. So all American white oak, what you're supposed to use, the right ratios. So this batch became something of its own thing. And this is how the Origin project started. And we had four of our own. So this is what we released along the way as something special. And we started off the series as it looks today with a 10-year-old on our 10th anniversary. And we put this out in a fancy box and all that kind of thing. And that's pretty sought after. I think we sold the last two bottles of it recently. Because you can only get it here. they wouldn't offer it to people because they're like, you have to be geeky to get it. Yeah. And so from there, we're like, okay, well, what's our next step in origins? That's what you have in your hand here. This is like the third or fourth step. The next one was to vertically to do a vertical of the four grain from three and a half to like nine, 10 years. And that was the first round. It was called intention. So we did it with intention. And it's our first foray into really blending our own whiskeys. Yeah. Because we don't really do that. It's like, here are the lots. They're all four years old and this is what we're gonna use. So of these hundred, we're gonna take 50 or something and we would pick through them that way. Then the next year we did rye in a vertical, very much harder, very, very much harder to blend across vertical. This is so distinctive every year. And we're using, we only use that rye grain from that year. So it became, there's a lot of difference in the rye. So you're like, oh, that's hard. And then we got to what you're sipping on right now. This is particularly important to me and let's sip it.

Yeah, I beat you to it.

Sorry. So this is something that's been on my mind, my head blender or head distillers mind for a while. Why can't we cross-marry and make American whiskey across the whiskeys that we make? Since we originally set out to deconstruct the four grain, why not reconstruct it? Because if you made it this way and you put it in a barrel, it wouldn't taste like this. So what you're sipping on now is a vertical of four grain. up to 12 years old, and a vertical of 100% wheat whiskey. 70% four grain, 30%, 100% wheat whiskey, and the wheat whiskey goes up to, I think, eight and a half years. Wow. And so we, and this is not easy to do. Well, probably easier for people who are really good at blending. For us, it was challenged. So we're like, okay, well, because you make a good vertical of the wheat and a good vertical, it doesn't mean they're gonna go well together. So you have to do many rounds of this. And what you think you might like, if you put that barrel in, it doesn't do that. It's like, if you want something sweeter, put a sweet barrel in, it becomes drier and spicier. So all things that we learned, I feel people probably laugh at this. For us, this is part of our learning. This is our learning curve.

I've always said that the delicious barrel A plus delicious barrel B does not always make delicious barrel C. That's right. Blending is an art, it's also a craft and you have to know what you're doing.

Yeah, or you have to have a lot of iterations.

A lot of iterations, that's right. Yeah, I've already tasted this, and it is a flavor bomb. It's got a lot of power to it. It's wonderful. And what's the proof on this again? It's like 120, 121. Yeah, so compared to the 95 proofs we've been sipping on so far in the show, this definitely makes a big impression on the palate. But it's not just because of the proof. It's because the flavor is just immense.

This is called Super Weeder. So it's when you combine the mash bills and the barrels that we use, it's about 45% wheat.

Yeah, it's got a little bit of a bite to it, and it's got that wheat whiskey kind of spicy bite to it that you get out of a good hot wheat whiskey.

I like you said that, because a lot of people like immediately say, oh, spicy rye. I'm like, oh, you had like a really high wheat whiskey? Yeah. Because when it's young, it's fiery. Yeah. At three or four years old, 100% wheat whiskey, it's going to make you tear up at barrel proof. And it calms down, though.

Yep, it still has that nice, wonderful grain note to it. I mean, you can taste the grains in it, but it's, I don't want to say this is a big boy whiskey because that's not fair to the ladies. I'm sure there's plenty of ladies who drink this whiskey, but this, you'd have to have your big pants on to drink this one. How's that?

I had a meeting one day right after we released this in early January. We were going to go through that and I'm like, okay, we'll try the new Super Weeder since we haven't had it. I'm like, oh, it's 10 o'clock in the morning. Maybe we should maybe put some ice in it. So we put a big chunk of ice in it. And I'm like, oh my God. it just blew up. I'm like, this is even, and I don't generally like ice in my whiskey. Although our wheat whiskey, which comes out this time of year, the bonded, I think it's seven or eight years old this year, it tastes better on ice because it takes some of the edges off and makes it taste like an orange creamsicle to some degree without anything in it. And so this does the same kind of thing, but it enriches it. A little bit of water and we have some water here.

Well, let's do it. Let's add a little water.

Changes the nose immediately.

Yeah. So I've added water to mine. The magic of editing podcasts. Yes. We got, we got back to this point really quick, but, uh, I'm ready to taste it and see what, uh, how long do you normally wait after you add water? 30 seconds. 30 seconds. Yeah. I don't think it takes very long to do what it needs to do.

Especially with the, we're not, we're not three finger pores here. So.

Okay, so it changed quite a lot, actually. It's gotten a little bit more buttery, and I think I'm getting a little bit more of the rhinos popping on it. Let me take a nose on it. The noses subdued a little bit more. I don't know. It didn't, it didn't kind of, I expected it to maybe get a little more floral.

We're using these open, open cups.

This is a little more of a rocks class kind of.

Yeah. If we had a Tulip or Glen Caron or something like that, it would puff for sure.

I can tell that this whiskey will stand up to a cube.

Oh, absolutely does. Yeah. Yeah.

And we're coming out of the colder season. We're entering into the summer months now. So throwing a cube in to set the mood, there's nothing wrong with that.

Our wheat whiskey is our summer whiskey. And we, like I said, we generally direct people to say, hey, put it on ice. Put an ice, put a cherry in it, you have a cocktail. It's already a cocktail. That's the 100% wheat, just on its own. That's the bonded wheat, which, again, came out two weeks ago.

And Super Weeder is obviously available here. Yes. And where else can they get it? They can get it online.

Yeah. Sometimes have to wait because we don't send a lot there and then the order comes and has to go to California and all these things. But here, In-state, we distribute it in a smaller degree. Again, you have to be a particular customer that wants it. You have to come and make the case. Not make a case for it, but not every store is going to sell this. Sure. Because it's a hand-sell for sure. And you have to describe what it is. And all this detail is on the bottle too, which blows a lot of geeks away. Because we tell them exactly what barrels we used. and how old they were. So they're like, this is so interesting. I'm like, yeah, it's cool information because I think it's cool. And it adds to it to know of the work that went into it.

And there's a good 50% of us out there that really care about that stuff. We really want the geeky notes. We want everything, you know? And then there's a lot of others. The other 50% care less what's it taste like. That's right. And so you're going to please them both with this bottle. For sure.

Yeah. And this is like, again, part of the highest end of what we put out. And this is... $130 a bottle or something like that.

So we're definitely at the high end of your expressions now. We're drinking the premium. And this is really good. Again, this is something that this bottle needs to be treated as something special. You're going to serve this up to every guest. You're going to look through the crowd at your bar, and you're going to say, who's going to appreciate this? Yeah.

Yeah, you're not pouring it for, I'm not pouring it for my dad, who doesn't care. He's like, I don't care, as it tastes good, that'll be it. But yeah, there's a lot that goes into this. I think the most expensive bottles we've ever sold were, with the Origins 12 years at $200 a bottle. And so while we get a lot of like, why isn't this 250 or whatever? I'm like, well, I've bottled those bottles before and this is really truly a special thing. But I have a hard time asking folks to, spend that kind of money on whiskey. I don't think a thousand dollars a bottle is the right thing. It makes it less approachable and it makes it inaccessible to people and I don't like that.

Well, when the bottle takes on its own sort of I don't know, vibrant path to legend. The secondary market take care of that for you.

We're not well known enough to, that's probably going to happen to ours.

Every now and then though, you never know, you get surprised by it. Somebody may just take you down that path someday.

This is worthy, no doubt. I'm not taking a knee here. But what we make is as good as anything made in this country at the highest level. And we care deeply about how it's made. If it's not extraordinary, it doesn't go in the bottle.

Yeah. So our listeners, some of them, of course, will make their pilgrimage to Colorado. They should, yes. What can they expect here on a distillery visit?

So this is a really cool concept that we started a long time ago, and that we believe that when you come to a distillery where people care, and we call this a village more than anything, is that you should be able to pay homage to the whiskey. So we have always had a whiskey church. So then one person, a fun lady, interrupted our This is years ago, our ambassador and said, oh, this isn't a whiskey church. And she said, oh, did we offend somebody or whatever else? She said, no, no, this is more like a chapel. And that was our smaller one we had. What we have now is like a church. So some of the big features of this building is the spiral staircase on the way up. All the walls are textured. They look like the inside of a barrel. It's supposed to look like char.

Yeah.

And then underneath, there's a two story gothic window that looks not onto view, but looks onto the industrialized kind of, there are whiskey or grain silos. They look onto that for purpose because it's a brutalist style building. But it's a two story gothic window. and you sit in church and the pews are there and there's the, and so you get this. There's a pulpit. There's a pulpit and there's a pews. My stepfather and my son and I built the benches and they weigh 400 pounds each. You can't move them without taking them apart. And there's a labor of love in that. And it's a really, they fit into the whole feel of this place. And that's kinda like, it's Whiskey Church. You're going to Whiskey Church when you come here, you're getting an education that, I'm not gonna brag, but it's as good as anything, if maybe not better. Then most places you're gonna go, you're gonna get depth and research. You're not gonna get a brand advertising story for the most part. You're gonna get some of that. That's what we have to do. But at the same time, you're gonna answer any questions, especially from geeky people, last questions that they don't expect to get answered. We'll answer them. And our folks are really well-trained. They don't have an answer. They're going to go get an answer for you. And it's a fun experience. So you get that in the church. You go through the distillery. You'll see your distillery nut and want to go to all these things. Not going to blow you away. We're making sour mash on grain American whiskey in pot stills. It tells you what you're going to see. all open air for a minute. So that's what we're doing. That's easy to, then you come back from that and you get to go into super cool room, which is my favorite room in the place. It's standing room thing. It's all very dark. We remove a lot of sensory on purpose so that you're then going to focus on the whiskeys, just like we're doing right now in there. You'll go through two or three samples and they're going to tell you about the whiskeys. And then they're going to direct you upstairs where we're sitting right now and say, hey, you like this, then go try it in this cocktail or go have it in this particular way. And then everything we make is behind that bar down there. So it's like, oh, call your shot. What do you want to try? And we'll tell you all about it.

Yeah. And I'm sitting in a big, cushy, comfortable chair. I've got a panoramic window in front of me Colorado Rockies right there in my face. Snow capped Rockies, it's absolutely beautiful. You can't finish a tour any better way than to be in this room right here, having a cocktail and relaxing.

And this is set up for three different layers of enjoyment. So we're in my favorite enjoyment. It's like the low seating, there's tectum panels in the wall so it takes down any kind of din or noise. This is an industrial, It's a brutalist style building built from the ground up. So it meets the architectural standards of that. But then you also sit at the bar. That's a different experience. And then we have high top tables. But the occupancy appears 50 people.

Love the artwork, by the way.

Oh, and those are all local painters.

Yeah, beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. This is definitely experience that I highly recommend to our listeners. They find their way into Denver. they should make this one of the stops on their visit.

Absolutely. This is a destination for the Conde Nast thing we got in the top 50 for the country. Something to come see. If you come to Denver, you have to come to this place.

And you're on the corner of? So on Acoma Street in Arkansas. OK, right in Denver. So you find your way here. It's pretty easy to find. There's plenty of parking. Like you said, it's kind of an industrial area, but there's homes here too. So it's kind of a mixed district, right?

Yeah, for sure. This is an area that's turning over. When we first bought the building, it was an enterprise zone. Most people know what that means in their city. It means that nobody wants to be here. But now it's no longer that.

I'm looking at the homes that are down the street in front of me. I'm thinking these are homes that were built years ago. Yes. That have been revitalized. They're being brought back. This district is probably thriving now. Breweries, restaurants, things are just happening here.

They just announced the women's professional soccer stadium is three blocks from here. That's where they're going to build it. Fantastic. It's a pretty nice kind of addition to the neighborhood for sure.

How can people find you on the internet, website, social media, all that kind of stuff?

Well, our website is www.loudswiskeyhouse.com. And then we have Instagram, very active Instagram page. Facebook is less active. I don't believe, well, Casey was still here. I don't believe we do anything on Twitter, or what do they call it now? X. X, yeah. I don't think we do anything really on that. But you definitely find us on all those. Online, our fulfillment is, I think it's now Flaviar, because I think they bought Speakeasy. That's working itself out. But the best is to come here. And we're like 10 minutes outside of downtown. So if you're staying here, We think we'll get more visitors in the summer than we will in the winter, because most people roll into Colorado and they go right to the mountains.

Yeah, sure.

You can get in the mountains, but you won't have this experience. It's a very distinctive experience.

And as far as states that carry your product, how many states are you in?

We're like 15, 16, but most of those aren't super active. So we're Illinois, here's our biggest state obviously. Here, Mid-Atlantic like in DC area, a lot of on-premise accounts that are there like Cinder Barbecue and Drug City in Maryland, that's a great place to go. He can get it in a lot of states, but we're not really widely distributed. But people can check online. That's the best way, I think, to do it. And then if you have requests and just hit our info at Wiles Whiskey House and it wasn't online and one of them looking for this, we can probably get it to the online fulfillment partner.

Tell your local liquor store to reach out to the distributor and say, we want it here.

Yeah. So we're mostly distributed by breakthrough and then R&DC. Yeah. So and Texas, California, Illinois here are probably the easiest places to get it.

Well, I'd love to thank you for the opportunity. It's been tremendous to come in and hang out with you for a bit of time and take a tour of your facility, drink your whiskeys. Thank you for sharing them with me.

Well, thank you for making my Thursday awesome. Your staff is amazing. You've got great people. Our village is the thing I'm most proud of. All this is our people.

All right. Well, I will definitely be back. Thank you. All right. Well, you can find the Bourbon Road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, threads. Yeah, we do it all. Thanks. Every single week, Todd and I will roll out an episode. We'll sit down with somebody like Al here and and do an interview, we'll taste through some whiskey. We're always having fun. We're always laughing. It's a great show. You definitely don't want to miss it. The best way not to miss it is to scroll to the top of that app you're on, hit that subscribe button that way every week. You'll get that bell notification, that email, whatever it is, however you have it set up, to let you know that the Bourbon Road has dropped another one. And we'll get you through that next headphones on session of cutting the grass or driving to that next sales call or whatever it is you do with your headphones on. We'd love to be part of your day. But until the next time, we'll see you down the bourbon road.

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