@timwenger1: Colorado Craft's Rising Star

Recently, I spent some time hanging out at Denver’s Rising Sun Distillery. Within the first few minutes of being there, I noticed something missing - the air of testosterone that permeates most distilleries. As head distiller Kim Cavallaro worked a batch of mash set to eventually be enjoyed as Rising Sun’s Organic Vodka, co-founder and owner Dawn Richardson gave me the rundown on her business.

Rising Sun Distillery sits in one of the few areas of Denver not yet completely overrun by gentrification. Their building is just on the other side of Colfax from the soon-to-be-renamed Sports Authority Field at Mile High, on Zuni St. just north of 13th Ave. For those more familiar with Denver’s craft breweries, Rising Sun is two doors down from Strange Brewing Company. Together, the two provide the perfect pre-Broncos game party spot for anyone not lucky enough to get into the lots at the stadium. Co-founders Dawn and Sol Richardson opened their doors in January 2015, after spending nearly a year reworking their space inside an old industrially-zoned building to meet code for making booze.

“Having more women around wasn’t intentional, but it’s been a great asset,” said founder and co-owner Dawn Richardson. “But we did brand our product to be a little more feminine. I didn’t want another cowboy label. I mean we’re in Colorado, everybody’s got a cowboy label, right? Everybody’s doing whiskey, every brewery and every distillery has corrugated tin and barn wood. At this point, it’s almost like it’s a franchise.”

“I hear you,” I said. “A lot of distilleries do look exactly the same.”

“We do end up getting more women in here than men,” Dawn said. “I wanted to do something that felt different.”

photo by www.centennialspecialtytours.com

Kim, who started with Rising Sun shortly after the company’s founding and upon her completion of a culinary degree, doesn’t think of herself as a groundbreaker. For her, this is business as usual. Wine and beverage courses in school kicked off her passion for the liquid side of the art, followed by an internship with Englewood, CO’s Downslope Distilling. “While I was in culinary school I realized that my heart was more in beverage,” she said. “I absolutely loved it. It still had that creative aspect of cooking that I loved and a lifestyle that I felt I was able to sustain a little bit better.”

Luck played in her favor out. “When I graduated, I was looking for a distilling job at the exact same time that these guys were looking for their first distiller. I’m super proud of it because it is a unique position to be in,” Kim said. “I don’t think about it so much as being a woman; I think about how young I am. I’m only 23, and I’m taking things from grain to bottle and sending them out into the world, doing recipe development. It’s really exciting.”

Since forming Rising Sun in late 2014, Sol and Dawn have prioritized local and organic ingredients - often a daunting task. “I talked to the Colorado Department of Agriculture and they don’t know of any certified organic corn growers in Colorado, other than the Southern Ute Tribe,” Dawn said. “So our corn comes from western Kansas.”

“Western Kansas is probably closer to here,” I said, noting my time living in southwest Colorado a stone’s throw from the Southern Ute Reservation in La Plata County.

Making organic spirits in-house has been quite a process, fueled by a fire to be grain-to-glass and not one of the so-called faux-distillers. “When we first got in this we realized there are a lot of distillers who don’t make their own product,” Dawn said. “They buy bulk, put it in a bottle, put a pretty label on it. I’m like, if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it right. I grew up always making everything from scratch. My grandma was a rancher.”

Dawn and Sol personally drive to Pueblo to buy the chilies they use in their green chili-infused vodka. They buy their peaches directly from Colorado’s peach Mecca of Palisade. “We’ve met our farmers,” Dawn said. “Having these local agricultural products is way better than I thought it would be. It’s really trendy right now, but it’s awesome. It's a little life cycle that we’re all involved in.”

The labor of love pays off. Rising Sun’s Organic Vodka just took home the silver medal in the Denver International Spirits Competition this year. The corn-based mash makes for a vodka that is exceptionally smooth. I’m not normally one to sip straight vodka, but I maintained both conversation and a straight face drinking Rising Sun.

 

“Because everything in this business is so customized, we end up working with a lot of other independent small businesses,” Dawn said. “Since we’re a small business, we just feed each other.”

“How about getting going?” I asked. “How was the permitting process and getting approval to build your space? I work with a music venue in town that has been working with the city for permission to build a rooftop patio for almost three years now. It’s been a nightmare.”

“We wanted to open in Denver, but in hindsight, we probably shouldn’t have,” Dawn said. “They’re a pain in the butt to work with. It took us nine months to get our federal permit to manufacture liquor, but it took eleven months to get the city approval for the building permits. We signed our lease here in May of 2013, we got possession in November of 2014, then opened our doors in January of 2015. We don’t have any investors, it’s just been the two of us. It’s been a challenge.”

“Has the reward been worth the risk?” I asked. Dawn, behind the bar, poured me sample servings of each of their spirits. I gotta say, that organic vodka does the trick.

“We met all of our projections for our first year,” Dawn said. “We got picked up by a distributor locally, and we’re talking to a distributor in the Phoenix area. We think that they’ll pick us up. We’re not where we want to be, though. The goal is for distribution. We built (Rising Sun) with expansion in mind, so we have room to put in one, maybe two more, distilling tanks.

Rising Sun rents space to the Jun Key Co-op, a collective of members who produce the Kombucha-like drink Jun as well as other organics, to do their bottling. Jun, actually, is how I connected with Rising Sun in the first place - the distillery provided the stiff part of the drinks at a farmer’s market event near my home where the Jun Key Co-op sells their stuff. “I think you can tell in our product and our cocktails how we approach the business,” Dawn said. “It’s a slightly different focus, with the creative element and community networking stuff. There’s an art to it.”

Risingsundistillery.com

Tim Wenger is a Denver-based microshiner, journalist, musician, and avid snowboarder. Check in with him at @timwenger1 and catch more of his work at Colorado Music Buzz, Snowboard Colorado, and his weekly talk show on worldviral.tv

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@timwenger1: Silver Linings

I rode alone up Loveland Ski Area’s Lift 6 up and tilted the whiskey flask to my lips. “Cheers to the best season of my life.” My friends Andy and Jeff were two chairs ahead of me, pointing toward the vast ridge on our right. As we drew closer to timberline the fresh white snow beneath reflected the brightness of Colorado’s springtime sun. The lift carried us up to chase the next clue in New Belgium’s spring skiing scavenger hunt. Watching my friends plot out our next run, I thought back on the past five months.

I had experienced the steep chutes and deep powder of Jackson Hole’s backcountry access gates for my bachelor party in January. I had hiked high above tree line at Whistler Blackcomb, dropping into terrain I’d seen in photos and videos for years but never thought I’d get the chance to ride. I had taken the snow cat to 13,000 feet and ridden the longest runs of the season back to the base just above I-70 at my home mountain of Loveland, and skirted down one of the area’s most difficult runs, the Number 3 Headwall. Not a bad winter - and the forecast for the next month looked promising for late season snow - good for recreational uses as well as an extra cushion of water to minimize the wild fire risk as summer creeps in.

We strapped in together at the top of the lift. To our right, a man dressed up in a bunny costume barreled past us. This had to be the next clue in the hunt, we decided. We rode as fast as we could after him and cornered him next to a tree about a half mile down the mountain. It turned out that the goal was to snap a photo of our team with this bunny. Check.

The bunny hinted at a group of people gathered around a makeshift sign at the bottom of the terrain park to our right. “Let’s cut through those trees and into the terrain park on the other side,” I said. “We’ll still be able to make it down towards the next clue.”

They both agreed. We headed through a sparse grove of trees under warm spring sun and dropped into the park area. I jetted down the left side of the run and approached a rail I had ridden before - a rainbow box with a smooth transition and easy landing. I checked my speed into the final approach and ollied onto the box. The nose of my board slapped the box. I careened off to the right and tumbled down the icy slope. My board caught on the edge of the rail and twisted my legs sharply to the left.

I hit the ground and slid to a stop. My left ankle throbbed. I glanced around in panic. I dragged myself to the side of the run. It felt as though the ankle was in a vice. A sharp pain shot up my leg as I lay down in the snow. Jeff rode up.

“Are you going to be able to make it down?” he said.

“I don’t know yet. Give me a few minutes. You guys can go on ahead if you want.”

“No, that was a nasty spill. We might need to call the Ski Patrol.”

“Stop being a bitch, dude, let’s go!” Andy yelled from below. “We’re going to miss the next checkpoint.”

“He might have a broken ankle,” Jeff said.

I sat up. The mountains spun around me. “I can make it down.” The perceived humiliation of riding the toboggan down was too much for me. These guys would never let me hear the end of it.

“Are you sure?” Jeff said. “I can call ski patrol right now.”

“I’ll be ok.”

I rode switch down the mountain, my bad ankle on the back half of the board instead of the front like in my normal stance. I fell down every three or four turns, embarrassed to look like a tourist. When I reached the bottom of the hill, my ankle still throbbed heavily and I struggled to unstrap from the board. Jeff and Andy assisted me in walking to a bench. Almost unbearable pain took over my leg. I knew my season was over. I told them to go back out and finish the scavenger hunt.

“I’m just glad this happened in April instead of December,” I said.

“Yeah but there are still two months left,” Jeff said. “Are you going to go to the clinic?”

“Not until we get back to town. I’ll be alright for a while, just don’t take all day. I can only handle watching everyone else ride for a couple hours at most.” I chewed on what I had said to them. Why is it that I have pursued this hobby so heavily? Riding a board made of wood and fiberglass down a mountain over and over must seem crazy to most people. I knew the answers: travel and adventure. This season alone, snowboarding took me to British Columbia, Wyoming, and all across Colorado. It provided an excuse to catch up with friends new and old. It helped me get outside and stay in decent shape. I’ve always enjoyed checking out the scene in different ski towns and always made a point to talk with other riders about where they have been and where they’re headed next.

It’s a labor of love. Much like craft distilling. A common theme in mountain states like Colorado and Montana - there is a lot of love going on. I’ve always thought that it has something to do with the region - those who prioritize living in the mountains seem to have a higher tendency of also prioritizing a strong work-life balance. Mixing in a love for the outdoors with a line of work built from passion is a common theme around here. Two weeks after I broke my ankle I took off to play a weekend of shows with my band. On the way to meet up with the guys down in Durango I stopped in at Wood’s High Mountain Distilling in Salida and spoke with owner and head distiller P.T. Wood. Wood and his brother Lee formed the business that offers lines of both gin and whiskey, their Treeline Gin and Tenderfoot Whiskey being the most well known. In line with his desire to increase the balance between work and life, Wood’s is gearing up to release spirits in an aluminum can, perfect for the outdoors. The Backcountry Bottle will be hopefully available by summer. “It’s for guys going on river trips, hut trips, backpack trips,” Wood said.  

“This came from being a river guide,” Wood said. “Going out and doing lots of river trips, sitting around the campfire drinking whiskey. On one of my early Grand Canyon trips in the early nineties one of the local bar guys brought three different ammo cans with a variety of different bourbons and Scotch and Irish whiskeys. We went through probably fifteen different whiskeys on that trip and talked about (distilling). That was the original inspiration.”

After years of talking and planning and a failed attempt in the early 2000’s, Wood gave up on the dream for a bit. “It started back up in 2008,” he said. Watching bigger names like Stranahan’s and Peach Street Distillers pop up around the state put a burning desire in Wood’s head to take his knowledge and put it into a distilling business. The market was tough, and the start-up costs were high. Craft beer took all the glory in those days. But Wood’s High Mountain Distilling took a small town DIY attitude and started bottling spirits that appealed to the mountain men and river bums living the outdoors lifestyle around the state of Colorado.

“The craft beer guys came into this world when there wasn’t any good beer to be had, so that was a pretty easy route to market. In distilling, the big guys are making great juice. There is crap for sure, but it’s a little bit different. That being said, people love small and they love local.”

Prominently displayed in the front of the distilling area is Wood’s original 50 gallon pot still, nicknamed Ashley. Built in the 1800s, Ashley is Wood’s original still and was used until P.T. and his crew brought in a larger 250 gallon homemade still called Frankenstill. Currently, Wood’s is in the process of acquiring a new 500-gallon system to increase their capacity above the their annual mark of 15,000 bottles. Not bad for a business that acquired their DSP on November 13, 2012.

In addition to the Treeline Gin line and Tenderfoot whiskey, check out Wood’s Mountain Hopped Gin, Alpine Rye Whiskey, and Fleur de Sureau Elderflower Liqueur. Order online at woodsdistillery.com. A little bit of Wood’s helped mask the pain of what turned out to be a broken ankle. While seriously affecting my work-life balance at the moment, I should be good to go for river season, with an aluminum bottle of whiskey sitting in my dry bag.

Tim Wenger is a Denver-based microshiner, journalist, musician, and avid snowboarder. Check in with him at @timwenger1 and catch more of his work at Colorado Music Buzz, Snowboard Colorado, and his weekly talk show on worldviral.tv

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Does Success Mean Selling Out?

One of the major ways the craft world differs from other businesses is in how it considers the idea of ‘selling out.’ Most start-ups, especially those in the tech industry, include an exit strategy in their business plan. Those that reach that point, that are able to scale, achieve a high valuation, and make a successful, and profitable, exit are typically celebrated and idolized.

Not so in craft. This is an industry whose supporters loathe growth. When Breckenridge Brewery sold to AB InBev last December, the public reaction was overwhelmingly negative. The comments on news articles, such as this piece from The Denver Post, sunk to a level of negativity I haven’t seen since the mid-nineties when swarms of punk rock fans became outraged as bands like The Offspring, Green Day, and Bad Religion signed to major record labels.

What happens when Bacardi and Beam Suntory start buying up small, local distillers? It began in Colorado back in 2010 when Stranahan’s was bought by Proximo. But is it really that bad? If a craft distiller has the idea of eventually being bought out floating around the back of his head from the day he starts up, is he ruining that concept of ‘craft?’

From a business school standpoint, absolutely not. Any smart business owner has an exit strategy, even if it is to pass the company on to his children. But with a scouring public viewing things through their own lens, craft distillers could be looking at a considerable amount of criticism when and if they decide to sell.

I decided to get an opinion from inside the industry. “That’s a personal decision that you make,” says Ted Palmer, head distiller at Boulder’s Vapor Distillery. “That’s business. There are plenty of other people behind you that are family owned, that are making every drop by hand, that are putting their soul into it. There is always going to be that. If you grow to a size where it is unmanageable for you, it’s probably a good idea to sell out.”

Isn’t that success, in so many words?

Vapor Distillery is best known for Ted’s New Western Style Rhok Gin and a barrel-aged gin aptly dubbed Ginskey (best cask-aged gin at the 2015 World Gin Awards in London). Their products are now found in twelve states as well as Denmark, Italy, and Hong Kong. The company, while achieving success, is at this time still thriving on being independent.

Ted’s passion for distilling was born of somewhat rebellious family roots. He first distilled with his grandpa at age 10. “He was making a batch of cornmeal whiskey in the garage,” Ted says. “He didn’t like to pay taxes, so he made his own beer, his own wine, and his own whiskey.” Staying with his grandpa on summer vacation, Ted was stuck in the garage watching his grandpa work his still. “I was blown away that he could take cornmeal and turn it into a clear liquid. It blew me away.” A passion for chemistry was born and a degree in chemical engineering and microbiology with a minor in botany.

After getting out of the Navy, Ted pursued a brewing degree in Chicago and took a job at Pyramid Breweries in Seattle. He worked a few other breweries in the nineties, owning one himself, until 2003 when a new law came into effect that altered the course of his career.

“The states got smart,” Ted says. “They looked at how much revenue they were getting from breweries and they said ‘Why can’t we do this with distilleries too?’” One by one, states began to drastically reduce the fee to obtain a state distilling license- from around $50,000 annually to closer to $1000. (In Montana, the initial fee is $600 before any processing or fingerprint fees. Check out this document.)

Enter distilling into Ted’s life. He started a distillery in Santa Monica, California that made vodka. He eventually moved back to Colorado. Here, he came into contact with what was then called Roundhouse Distilling in 2009. Ted bought the company from a lawyer living in the Longmont area who distilled (illegally, of course) as a hobby. 

The operation was run on a 3 gallon copper pot still - the twisty, uterus-like contraption you might see on display in a museum exhibit. Production capacity was twelve bottles of gin at a time. “The consistency was all over the place because the batches were so small,” he said. Longmont, Colorado was the location. “It was selling maybe 100 bottles per year.” 

The first thing Ted did after he took over the company was buy a new still. Now at 130 gallon per batch capacity for gin production, the concept was about ready to become legit. (Today they also have a 1500 gallon copper pot still for whiskey production on site these days, which Ted proudly boasts is the biggest in Colorado.)

Ted’s current partner, Alastair Brogan, came to the United States from Scotland with a strong desire to be a part of the booming craft market. “I always wanted to make single-malt whiskey,” Alastair said. So much so that before he left Scotland he ordered what is now the company’s pot still from Forsyths, well-known as perhaps the top Scottish still manufacturer, “Without knowing where I was going to end up, who I was going to end up partnering with, anything like that.”

Alastair and his wife decided to relocate to Colorado following the sale of his family’s fuel distribution business. He visited most of the twenty distilleries operating in Colorado at the time. Vapor, then known as Roundhouse Spirits, impressed him the most. 

Vapor’s current Boulder location has grown along with business, increasing from 5,000 square feet to 11,000 square feet over a five year period as production has increased. “Back in the old days, everything was done by hand, including the bottling,” Ted said. “We had a five gallon bucket with a spigot on it, we filled bottles one at a time. Now we’ve got a rudimentary line. It’s not completed yet. We need a new filler with a conveyor on it so we can put bottles in on one side and take them off on the other.” He hopes they can have that in place by the end of 2016. The current bottling capacity is 600 per day- with the filler and conveyor in place it will double.

“You go to the government and you say ‘I want to start a distillery in town,’ and they’ll say things like ‘Is that legal?’” Ted says. “They’ve never seen a business like this before so they have no idea how to regulate you. You have to teach them everything. Then they start putting their thumb on you and trying to change the rules. Coming to Boulder wasn’t so bad, because there are so many breweries that the fire department and the city have an idea of what to do with you.

Taxes on distilling are also notably high. But the benefit today’s distillers have is that their movement is riding on the tail of the craft beer explosion. “More people are drinking craft beer, they’re going to look at craft spirits and go, ‘I gotta try this too.’” 

Not a bad train of thought, because if the beer industry’s story rings true for craft distillers, the giants are soon going to be swooping in and buying up the top players. Alongside Breckenridge Brewery, AB InBev also acquired Seattle wunderkind Elysian in a continuing string of buyouts. “If you take the growth curve on a graph of the beer industry, and do the same for distilleries and put them on top of each other, the graphs look identical,” Ted says. “The sky is the limit for us. I could see (the industry) growing as fast as the beer industry did over the last 20, 30 years.”

For their part, Alastair and Ted have no intentions of getting out anytime soon. “I’m here for a long, long time,” Alastair says. “I’m doing this into my seventies and eighties. I have no intention of going anywhere.”

find them at www.vapordistillery.com

Tim Wenger is a Denver-based microshiner, journalist, musician, and avid snowboarder. Check in with him at @timwenger1 and catch more of his work at Colorado Music Buzz, Snowboard Colorado, and his weekly talk show on worldviral.tv

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@timwenger1: Taking a Look at the Bright Side

For many years I have thought of New Year’s Eve as being like a good, long shower. The kind where you stand there under the stream of water, not washing or rubbing or squeezing a bottle, but refreshing yourself internally. Replaying the previous night in your head over and over, picking out what you did wrong; analyzing it and telling yourself today is going to be different. ‘Today, I have a plan.’

Then, without knowing where the realization came from, I had a thought that put the shower analogy into a better light. What it really comes down to is that New Year’s Eve represents the very essence of being human. Of taking what you’ve done, saving it in a folder, then cleansing the pallet and starting over again. Of another chance to prove that you can grow from your experiences. And, perhaps most important, of moving on and toasting a new beginning.

It also offers a chance to look on the bright side. This is easy to do when looking at craft culture. In our sphere, micro-distilleries are emerging from the shadow of craft beer to become a destination in themselves. Take a look at this map.

The bright side can be harder to focus on in the broader spectrum, but it is there. The Paris climate talks represent a solid step in the right direction in addressing climate change. Given the gridlock that dominates domestic politics, seeing a horde of world leaders sign off on what should be remembered as the biggest story of the year, is in itself a huge story.

While many cities across the United States are staring straight into the barrel of gentrification, there is at least a speck of beauty to the changes- long empty warehouses are being converted into havens for artists, clothiers, and a swarm of other businesses fueled by a thriving generation of young entrepreneurs. So much so that the entire concept of the office is being redefined to suit the modern worker (there is even booze in many of these places. I officed at Green Spaces, a coworking space in downtown Denver over the summer and on my first day there was excited to see a stocked kegerator near the coffee machine.)

A big part of the appeal of craft culture and the ongoing remodel of the modern worplace is seeing the work that you do pay off for yourself in multiple ways beyond a standard salary. Rory Donovan, one of three founders of Peach Street Distillers in Palisade, Colorado, has been motivated by this idea since the distillery began operations on New Year’s Day, 2004. “I’m blessed in that the harder I work, the better my business will do,” he said. “It’s nice to be able to call your own shots once in a while.”

The idea to turn those metaphorical shots into liquid ones was devised by Donovan and friends Dave Thibodeau and Bill Graham (who also happen to be two of the three partners of Ska Brewing Company). 

“We got invited to a distillers workshop put on by Kris Berglund at Michigan State University in 2004,” Donovan said. Berglund, a Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at the university, pitched the conference on the concept of running a distillery and the three drew up a business plan on a cocktail napkin later that night. “We ended up at the Holiday Inn bar putting together a business plan that would have had us retired in our third year, very wealthy.”

Unlike Ska, which is located on the outskirts of Durango, Colorado, far from a major highway or city, Peach Street’s Palisade location is near a) an interstate highway and b) western Colorado’s biggest town, Grand Junction. But the biggest reason for their choosing Palisade was the town’s fruit production. Palisade is right in the heart of Colorado’s wine country and perhaps the most fertile area of the state for farming. They are smack-dab in the middle of the high desert, where the polar complexion of hot days and frigid nights produce some of the best tasting fruit anywhere in the world.

“A big part (of Peach Street’s location) was it being on I-70,” Donovan said. “The primary reason was to be where the fruit was, where the raw materials were coming from. We were kind of looking to ride some coattails with the wineries, and people already coming to the area for that.”

Despite fruit surrounding them on all sides, the hearts of Donovan, Thibodeau, and Graham yearned with the desire to make whiskey. Start-up capital for the business came from the three of them ponying up as much as they could and borrowing the rest from Thibodeau’s family. Initially, they made a vodka (Goat Artisan Vodka, their premiere product), as well as some grappas and other experimental liquors. The whiskey needed to age, so Donovan and the crew had to produce batches of other spirits to keep the revenue stream flowing. Goat was the first spirit I tasted from Peach Street, back in college when I lived in Durango. “We needed to have some sort of variety sooner than later because we couldn’t afford to operate for two or three years without selling anything,” Donovan said. “So we made the vodka, and some grappas and stuff. The following season, we crushed it and we got all kinds of cherries and apricots. That gave us a bump while we were waiting on the aged products.”

A gin followed the vodka. Their line now includes two brandies, two gins, a bourbon, a grappa, a 100% blue agave nectar tequila, and in honor of their location right next to an orchard, an Eau Di Vie. Moving forward, Donovan and his team are going to be stepping it up even further. “We have a little still, and we run the thing ragged,” Donovan said. ““I’m proud as hell of the progress we’ve made. It’s work, man. When you pick something you love and make it your job, it changes. I sure as shit don’t make whiskey on my day off. But I’m proud of what we’ve created. But we just got a new still that is basically going to increase our capacity by five times. That’s pretty big time.” 

Look for a full marketing rebrand from Peach Street Distillers in 2016, improving the continuity of their imagery and top-of-mind awareness of their product line. Learn more about their products and check out their spot-on bird’s eye map of Palisade at peachstreetdistillers.com

Tim Wenger is a Denver-based microshiner, journalist, musician, and avid snowboarder. Check in with him at @timwenger1 and catch more of his work at Colorado Music Buzz, Snowboard Colorado, and his weekly talk show on worldviral.tv

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@timwenger1: Ride the Whiskey Rails With Blank & Booth

Halloween 2015 gave me a good dose of how it is Donald Trump picks up his legion of foolhardy followers. Surrounded by ghosts and sauced on Dancing Pines rum, I stood inside the pitch dark banquet hall of the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park (the one from Stanley Kubrick’s movie The Shining) and desperately try to find my fiancé so we can get the hell out of there. Camera flashes riddled the room like a strobe light.

I found her bent down over a small mirror in the corner of the room, attempting to take a reflective photo. Supposedly, with the right lighting (or lack there-of) and a mediocre mastery of your smart phone camera, you can see the ghosts that haunt the hotel. The only thing I’d seen myself was a bunch of Midwestern tourists running around in the dark like we were kids playing ghosts in the graveyard. Which I guess isn’t that far off.

After about twenty minutes we were escorted to the music room. Following the guide’s wholehearted affirmation that the hall’s most famous spirit had been caught on camera by one of our own, I had spent half our time in the banquet hall hiding out in the bathroom after an open prayer session broke out.

The hotel may very well be haunted. I have no evidence to counter that claim. But I’ve seen enough paranormal shows to suspect that Apple doesn’t install sixth sense technology into the iPhone 6 and that 30 years of watching college football and the nightly news doesn’t qualify anyone to be a seer of the unseen.

As we walked through the lobby to the next shrine of the undead, the general consensus stood that we were on the trail of the spirits. I was ready to join the trail of spirits back to the bar. I needed to continue drinking away tonight’s re-affirmation of the anxious gullibility of mainstream America. And these people are moving to Colorado by the droves.

Fortunately Alisha was on the same page. We split from the group, and after wandering the hallways of the hotel and stopping in front of room 217 for a photo opp, we bailed and headed for a drink. Downtown Estes Park was crowded on this holiday weekend. Tourists and Denver weekend warriors filled the restaurants and pubs. We find a corner table at Ed’s Cantina and Grill and commence one of the art forms that Colorado natives do best - commiserating about all the damn transplants in our state over some of the fine local beverages that helped bring them here.

The rising population isn’t all bad though. A craft renaissance is also growing on the Front Range. Beneath the greed and socio-economic implications of rising housing costs and renovated neighborhoods, abandoned warehouses are being transformed into havens for artists and craft connoisseurs.

Back in Denver, halfway between I-25 and the railroad tracks running through the Lincoln Park neighborhood, a couple guys sit at a table behind an open garage door. From a distance they appear to be bums taking cover in this old industrial neighborhood that boasts no foot traffic to speak of. Few cars venture past these parts aside from employees of the nearby embroidery and auto parts store.

But instead of a squatter’s paradise, this old warehouse building is home to a diverse community of artists, clothiers, and as of 2014, Blank & Booth Distilling. Far from transients, the two guys are Nick Booth and Joel Jackson, engineers turned micro-distillers. This old warehouse where they sit at a table made from wood pallets, sipping a stiff drink, is home to their operation.

By Colorado law, distilleries must be industrially zoned, which is why so many of them are in warehouse districts. “We’ve been here for a year and a half almost,” says Joel, pointing to their small collection of stills and fermenting tubs.

The tasting room, separated from the distillery by a row of pallets, is open for special events and parties thrown by Booth and Jackson. The lack of foot traffic prevents the two from running regular hours. “We do Mardi Gras, St. Paddy’s, all the big days,” says Nick. They also do private events and parties promoted through social media.

Blank & Booth showcases three very diverse whiskeys and one vodka (simply named ‘Booze.’) Their debut product was a white whiskey called Ripple, named after the Grateful Dead song. 80% corn, 10% rye, 10% malt, coming in right at 90 proof. It hits the tongue with a bite and finishes clean, with flavors of rye and sugar standing out. Jackson recommends tasting it straight to get natural feel, then dropping a cube of ice in to burst open the flavors.

I pause for a moment, letting the Ripple coat my mouth. There is something beautiful in this. I am looking at the still that the whiskey was made in while I drink it, speaking with the guys who created it (and who make up the entire company). “It’s not being altered through time or travel, you’re getting the real taste here,” I say.

Next they pour me a taste of their Hot Mess, flavored with Hatch green chili. Being a true Coloradan, I like green chili with anything and whiskey is no exception. Nick and Joel describe a Moscow Mule made with Hot Mess that is poured by Blake Street Vault downtown. I talk them into making one for me now.

Distilling came naturally to the two, whose first ‘experiment’ back in early 2013 came out of a converted keg at 140 proof. “We’re both engineers, we work together,” Nick says. “Joel asked about starting a brewery, but there is just so much going on there. So we were looking for another branch. Distilling is something we naturally understand because of our background.”

They signed a lease on a smaller room in the same building they currently work from in July of 2013. Test runs started in November and the first bottle release went out in May 2014 - 60 bottles of ripe corn whiskey.

This is the definition of craft. Their passion borders on full-fledged geekiness. At least three times I was told about how awesome it is to run the still and how when they have events in this space, they will often turn on the still just because of the excitement it stirs among the people in the room. I don’t know if there is any scientific evidence behind this but knowing how much care Nick and Joel put into their spirits seems to make drinking them that much more enjoyable.

“One thing we do a little different here is run open fermenters,” Joel says. They show me a bubbling broth of soon-to-be Benchcraft whiskey roiling in a 500-gallon open wood fermenter that resembles an old chalet-style hot tub. This corn whiskey is named, according to the distillers, in honor of artists and builders like themselves.

Currently their products are available in a collection of fine liquor stores and bars in the Denver area, many of whom Joel and Nick hand built a relationship with while their product was being born. Hugo’s, Molly’s Spirits, and Mile High Wine Cellars jumped quickly on board.

“We had a number of small liquor stores in town that we knew, that we grabbed beers from,” Joel says. “We’d be down here working and go in covered in mash and stock and they’re like ‘Dude, when’s the distillery gonna be up!’ They didn’t know our product but they saw that effort and that led to them picking up our first couple cases.”

This past summer, Joel was working a night shift on the still. Around 6 AM, hanging out with the garage door open and Grateful Dead booming from the stereo, he noticed a couple guys coming towards him. “The suns coming up, I’m hanging out listening to music and I look out and a couple guys come walking out of this field over here,” he says. They approached and asked for some water. Turns out the guys were rail hoppers on their way down to the San Luis Valley for a party. “I started talking to them. I made them some cocktails, I was interested in their story. Sticks was one of the guys’ names. They’d been sitting on the rails since 11 pm waiting for the next train. It was amazing to me that these guys knew where all the trains were going. Then, all of a sudden, they bailed. They saw a caboose pulling up.”

Joel gave them the rest of the bottle they had been drinking on for the road and went back to work, not thinking too much of it. “That night we had an event, we were in here. I got a notification on my phone. Sticks had friended us (on Facebook) and wrote a note- “The bottle of Hatch green chili whiskey is no longer on this earth. It has been consumed by us. Thank you brother, we’ll see you the next time we pass by.”

I finish the rest of my Moscow Mule, my faith in humanity somewhat restored.

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@timwenger1: My Life Is a Movie Filled With Mountain Spirits

Snow is falling in Colorado. This is the time of year that excites me, that gets the visions of perfectly slashed heel-side carves running through my head. The way my TV keeps replaying Peyton Manning’s interceptions over and over, the snow blowing back into my face as I cut my board back toe-side.

They say that no two snowflakes are the same, and whoever they are, I believe them. I have found that this mantra is applicable in many different aspects of daily life, far beyond the reaches of mountain snowfall. Lately I have found that a similar uniqueness is not only important but imperative to growth as a person, and as a business.

In a state that is literally swimming in craft chugs - over 200 breweries and nearly 50 distilleries dot our landscape here in Colorado - it always surprises me when I see a bar owner pouring the same worn out drinks in his struggling pub, forced to drop the prices down so low just to draw in customers that he is barely pulling a profit from each draft beer he sells. The fact is that in 2015, any place that needs to serve $1 Bud Light to get people in the door is going about it all wrong and portraying a strong air of desperation in the process. With all the great beer and spirits being produced in Colorado, it should come as no surprise that drinkers want the local stuff!

I spent years working in bars around the state, doing everything from cooking tater tots to pouring 25 versions of the Long Island Iced Tea to booking and promoting concerts (I’ve even sat in as a bouncer once or twice), in places ranging from college dives to rock clubs and ski town pubs and grills. From the inside, the best places have personality - they aren’t afraid to put their stamp on things. The personalities of the management as well as the employees are allowed to shine through. Even the drinks have a persona about them. The owners have created their brand and are running with it, no holds barred. Recently I have come into contact with two brands, one local and one from California, that are taking concepts done many times before them and re-stamping them with their own flavor.

In Denver, many local pubs are pouring locally made craft spirits. This benefits not only their business but another local as well, injecting an extra shot of Colorado’s eccentric personality into their drinks. On a recent day at local live music haven Herman’s Hideaway I was treated to taste of Vanjak Vodka - a smooth, clean vodka with plenty of personality that even myself, a proclaimed rum drinker, enjoyed.

Vanjak is produced just up Highway 6 in the booze mecca of Golden, a town becoming almost as well known for the number of craft distilleries and breweries as it is for being home to one of beer’s biggest giants. I spoke with founder Jon Guelzow about what he has done to make his product stand out from the swatch of clear liquors on the shelves of local liquor stores.

“We want a clean tasting, smooth vodka that has no aftertaste,” Guelzow says. Using local ingredients is a key part of that process for the Vanjak team. “We looked at the vodka industry as a whole and realized that the majority of the vodkas being sold are all foreign. We were looking at the resources we had here in Colorado and we felt as though if we put a moderately priced vodka in the market we could do something good with it.”

Their product passes through their signature ‘Silver Filtration’ process, which according to the company’s website allows them “to curb as well as enhance, certain organoleptic characteristics of the finished product.” The silver works as an anti-bacterial and allows the company to send the vodka through a carbon process producing a very clean product. “You can taste the smoothness,” Guelzow says. “It tastes like what vodka is supposed to taste like.”

Another thing separating Vanjak from other fine vodkas (especially ones produced here in Colorado) is the price point - a 750 ml bottle costs around $17. Many other small-batch vodkas are nearly twice as expensive.

They also try to incorporate their love of the outdoors into marketing the brand. Guelzow and his wife have been in Colorado for over twenty years, drawn in by the active culture here. Vanjak Vodka, appropriately, plays towards that, marketing itself as a true Colorado brand that ‘embodies the state’s purity and refreshingly honest character.’

“(The culture) is a pretty big deal, to be honest with you, because my wife and I both moved here for the outdoor activities,” he said. “Most people that move here have that theme in their life, so we are trying to capitalize on that.”

Guelzow comes from a long background in the liquor industry, over twenty years at this point, a long path that fostered his desire to create a strong local product that the state can be proud of. Vanjak is delivered to clients out of the back of their company truck, no middleman involved. “I started off at a distributor being a salesman, went into retail, and now went into distilling,” he said. “It made sense, and it’s something we enjoy doing - making a brand having fun with it.”

Having fun seems to be the key to putting personality into your business - fun is something that is hard to fake. For entrepreneurs, separating yourself from those doing the same thing is second nature, but it is often easier said than done. An entrepreneur needs to find their voice, their way of letting people known that the product is originally and absolutely theirs.

Straying outside of the booze world, and away from Colorado, travel blogger Alyssa Ramos is the perfect example of an entrepreneur doing the business of blogging her way. I recently came across an article she wrote for the Huffington Post that documented how her constant travel has ruined her dating life, and started thinking about the ‘constant travel’ part. I know plenty of bloggers, most of whom make no money and have little actual knowledge to share outside of their opinions. This got me wondering how Ramos grew her brand to a point where she is not only travelling constantly but doing so as an authority and trend setter. Her blog, My Life’s A Movie, is a record of her world travels and advice documented through articles, listicles, photos, and video - plus a full social media suite of awesomeness.

It seemed to me that no one starts out simply as a blogger. I wanted to know how she built this - how she got people to care and to trust her judgment on things. The ability to have something to say that people actually want to hear has to come from somewhere, and for Ramos it all started with a snap decision to move from Florida to LA. She left a solid job to head into the unknown. “I graduated with a bio degree, I was a vet tech,” Ramos says. “I came to LA to visit and I hadn’t considered moving anywhere before, but I ended up cancelling my ticket home and staying in LA. So that was the whole ‘quit your job and do something else’ part.”

The travel bug was planted by an itch to volunteer in Africa. She had never done anything like that before - her travel experience consisted of little other than sojourns with friends or significant others and quick road trips during college. She looked into a volunteer opportunity in Muizenburg, South Africa and planned on making the leap. “I was waiting for someone else to book the trip too, and I waited so long that it ended up getting filled,” she says. With her deposit money for the trip out the door, she made the decision to just put together a trip to Africa on her own (it ended up working out - she booked a flight and met up with the volunteer program anyway). She has since founded a charity aiding the children in Muizenberg in obtaining new t-shirts, a luxury many of them never had. Find out more at heartsleeves.org

While there, another idea struck in addition to the charity she founded. “I was like, ‘I might as well see how much it costs to jump over to Thailand, because it’s cheaper if you’re already over there,” Ramos says. “I’m apparently really good at figuring out cheap flights and I got connections from South Africa to Thailand to Australia and back to LA, a revolution around the world.”

Three continents in three weeks- that’ll do a lot for not only the confidence but for the wanderlust in you. How do you go back to a 9-5 lifestyle after you’ve had a first-hand experience with cultures around the world? When you have experienced the door-opening freedom of extended travel, is there a way to re-incorporate yourself into the hustle and bustle of the corporate world? “I hate having a schedule that someone else makes,” Ramos says. “I can’t do that.”

Her reaction after returning from three weeks encircling the globe? “I’m going to do more crazy stuff!” She has since traveled to 32 countries on six continents now and has not only a blog but a social media following reaching over 50,000 people (35,000 on Instagram alone).

That extended trip was the start of the My Life’s a Movie brand. On the surface, the image of her blog is that of a ditzy wanderlust exploring the world from a single girl’s perspective, and certainly this is part of the curb appeal. But dig a little deeper, read the articles, and you’ll find a brilliant voice that is making solo international travel much more appealing and attainable for women and men alike. “I am keen at business, I know what I’m doing and, especially with Huffington Post, I write my headlines in a way that makes people go, ‘Did that bitch really just say that?”

Her content is very clearly hers, and her advice is worded in a way that is not only relevant but surprisingly not intimidating. “I don’t ever want it to be like ‘ooh look at me, I did this awesome thing and I can travel and you can’t” Ramos says. “That’s the opposite of what I try to do. I try to do things that are actually informative for them and it’s almost like ‘I’m going to test the waters and see what’s out there so that you can go do it to.’”

Her approach to documenting her travels is simple. “I just have so much to say and I have a really good memory,” she says. “I take a lot of pictures but I can remember so much and have so much to say about it. There is so much more to say about travelling than about a celebrity or a TV show. I write non-stop.”

Her passion shines through her work, and is what keeps her going. Because of this, she has developed a strong business sense and is very specific about what she posts and when. As a blogger, there is no money coming in right away - everything is earned through hard work and relationship building. “It’s a lot of risk,” Ramos says. “I’m not rich and I’m not going to be rich anytime soon because the money I do make I spend on traveling.”

Makes sense. She’s already got me wanting to pack my bags and hit the road immediately. As I sit here finishing yet another stiff Vanjak Tuff Mudder, I am already dreaming about my next trip. Keep that snow falling because in a few short weeks, Jackson Hole here I come!

Tim Wenger is a Denver-based microshiner, journalist, musician, and avid snowboarder. Check in with him at @timwenger1 and catch more of his work at Colorado Music Buzz, Snowboard Colorado, and his weekly talk show on worldviral.tv

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Altitude Spirits Opens New Tasting Room

With a brand new space in Boulder, Colorado spirits purveyor Altitude Spirits is now offering people the chance to decide for themselves whether or not craft spirits are up to the hype.

“Just like craft beers, craft spirits step it up to a level of quality that mass-market, factory-made products just can’t match,” explains Matthew Baris, a Boulder native who co-founded Altitude Spirits with his father, Mitch. “Tasting is believing, so we thought that we’d create a space where people have the opportunity to taste our spirits.”

The claim that craft necessarily equates to quality is contentious and oft refuted. A recent piece by Naren Young for Food Republic.com largely counters Baris' statement that craft is better just because its craft. As Young puts it:

My issue with this ethos, however, is that just because a spirit is labeled “craft” doesn’t mean it’s any good. I’ve tried some remarkable craft spirits, and I’ve tried just as many that I wish had never made it past the development stage. The surging popularity of craft spirits has certainly created a great window of opportunity for a lot (of) would-be craftsmen to enter the business. But sometimes you have to wonder how much time they’ve devoted to the craft itself before rushing a product to market while that window is still open.

The Altitude Spirits tasting room joins other beer and spirits tasting rooms in Boulder where fans can drop in, sample the wares, and test this theory for themselves. Their cocktail menu is a rotating list of original recipes featuring the Altitude Spirits portfolio, which includes vodka, gin, rum, and Scotch whisky. Customers can also buy special-edition bottles and offerings.

The difference between Altitude Spirits and many other craft spirits companies is that their range of small-batch spirits are primarily imported from distillers around the world, rather than produced in-house. This gives Altitude the luxury of sourcing and sharing only those particular spirits that have passed their own stringent assessments. As an added benefit, every single one of these spirits is USDA Certified Organic.

“We are huge believers in organic,” explains Baris. “People know that when they see that seal, it means a commitment to good environmental practices, certainly,” explains Baris, “but more than that, it means top-notch ingredients, and top-notch ingredients are how you make top-notch spirits.”

Baris is quick to add that if people would like to taste for themselves whether craft means quality, the new Altitude Spirits tasting room is just the place to do it. The tasting room is located at 2805 Wilderness Place, Suite 200, in Boulder and is open 4pm to 8pm Thursday,Friday, and Saturday.

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New Image for Montanya Distillers

The next time you are looking for a bottle of high mountain rum from Montanya Distillers, you will need to pay a little extra attention. The Crested Butte, Colorado-based  distiller, who we featured in the last issue of MicroShiner magazine, has given their brand a facelift, relabeling their entire line of light and dark rums. The redesign seeks to better convey the unique attributes of the distillery's mountain environment, while reflecting the brand's continued evolution.

Look or ask for them at your local bottle shop.

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Still on the Hill 2015

Craft distillers each year gather in Breckenridge for the Craft Spirits Festival, which features a grand tasting, restaurant specials, a downtown "Poker Run" pub crawl, and historic saloon tours. Born of Colorado's – and the nation's – rapidly-growing artisan spirits industry, the Breckenridge fest is the first of its kind in Colorado. With over 30+ distilleries pouring at the event, attendees have a chance to try anything and everything from the greater Colorado area's booming industry of craft spirits. 

BUY TICKETS NOW, admission provides complimentary tasting glass, delicious craft spirits tasting, craft cocktails, people's choice voting, artisanal snacks, and live music!

Visit [www.breckenridgecraftspiritsfestival.com/]

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@timwenger1: Putting the Seal on a Flying Pig

Call me crazy, or maybe just weird, but I have always been able to find some inner peace and revel in my own solitude when sitting at a forgotten corner table in a crowded noodle house during the lunch rush, slowly working through a good bowl of pho, ramen, or (on a day when I’m feeling particularly light) even a simple cup of soup enhanced with tofu and the perfect amount of sriracha and hoisin. It has always been similar to the feeling of taking that first long pull off a stiff drink after a hard day of work, waiting to meet a friend for happy hour at a crowded dive bar or sitting on the balcony at home, unwinding and refueling while the cars down on the street below fight for that last remaining parking spot on the block, often ending in more than one pulling away in frustrated shame when their parallel skills fall short of the task.

It is a feeling of unaccompanied satisfaction - just me, my thoughts, and my poison of choice observing the chaos of the city. But what happens when that bubble is popped? How do you react when a nearly forgotten face slides into the empty chair on the other side of the table?

Amid quickly recalled flashbacks from the past ten or fifteen years of my life and several ear-loads of stories about war, kids, and that drunken night back in the day at the Flogging Molly concert, I couldn’t help but laugh as I unexpectedly spent a lunch hour that quickly became two with an old high school friend. A friend that, once diplomas were in hand, took a very different route from my own. On the surface, this was just another conversation that left me thinking about how easy it is to feel like you are behind the curve in life when you are 31, have no kids, and still spend more time at Record Depot than Home Depot. But as we sat trolling over food from a far off land and laughing over equally distant memories, I thought about how at this age, and probably any after high school, it is too easy to put yourself in a social box.

As you move into a career path, or have a family, or whatever the focal point of your life is, it is so easy to begin pushing the people and things that don’t fit perfectly into that realm out and surround yourself with people and things that coincide with the path you have taken. I realized how much I missed this guy, and so many other old friends that without Facebook and the occasional random spotting I’d have no contact with. The times with them are special because those times are past. I have followed my guts down the path I am on, and he has done the same. Whenever I see him again, we will still laugh at the same old teenage stories while quietly thinking about how different we have become.

For the first time in a while, it wasn’t the food that made a restaurant experience something I couldn’t get out of my head. I still had this on my mind as I walked into Fluid Coffee Bar in Denver’s Uptown neighborhood the next morning to meet a local entrepreneur trying to imprint his name on the craft spirit scene. I grabbed a drip coffee, black, and sat down with JP Krause, co-owner of Krause Family Spirits, who produce SQUEAL spiced black rum. JP and his wife started the brand in 2013 as a way to express their lust for all things creative and fun. JP is also a chef. A guy who must by proxy understand the menaces of the BOH life as well as the soul of the FOH life. And as I quickly learned, also a guy who has had many social experiences like the one I had just gone through.

For JP, the inner social circle, as well as the ability to have connections both new and old, starts at the center. We are here to talk about his rum, but I keep going off subject and wondering out loud how I should go about involving people in my life. Is it possible to keep in touch with everyone you were once close to? It seems to be a question of how you’ve grown up. JP runs his own business and has learned that because of that, what he does ‘off the clock’ will absolutely affect his life ‘on the clock.’

“I went to an all-boys high school,” he says. “Everyone was super tight. There was no cliques growing up. You walked in and it was like a brotherhood of 300 brothers. There was no jocks and nerds, everyone just hung out. And being in Denver, you run into people all the time from high school. To me, it’s more like a maturity level. I’m 31; I’m not afraid to be young, but I’ve matured a lot. Certain people you can kind of connect with because they have matured also. There are other people who it’s like they are still living in college. Having a wife and kids, and a business, you have to have this certain sense that no matter what I do outside of work, it’s always going to come back on my business. You never know who you’re going to meet and who they’re going to talk to.”

Makes sense to me, I think as sip my coffee. I ask him who he talked to that led him from the kitchen to the still.

“When I was working at the Broadmoor I met this beautiful lady named Monika,” JP says. Monika (pronounced Mo-NEEK-a, as I learned from JP after I clearly said ‘Monica’ while speaking to her on the phone) is from Poland, and Krause had to chase her back there shortly after they met to put the ring on her finger. “We got engaged and I married her a few months later. We lived out there in Poland for a while.”

A small town called Winesoot to be exact is where Monika calls home. While there, JP vicariously immersed himself in the strong vodka culture of the region. The idea of molding his ability to master a recipe and this new love of craft spirits was born. “She grew up tasting really good, clean spirits,” JP says. “And I come from the chef world and I saw this movement towards craft beers and nice cocktails.” While running the bar at Denver’s Aloft Hotel, the idea came to him to create his own spirit. “I thought, ‘You know I bet I could make something taste really good.’”

The original plan was to make a vodka in the vein of the Polish spirits Monika was used to and that JP had experienced since meeting his wife. “We started playing around,” JP says. “We threw some peach in there, some spices in there. Then we thought, let’s make a nice spiced rum.” And voila, the concept for Krause Family Spirits’ SQUEAL spiced black rum was born. “Rum is kind of that ‘hang out in the summer, hang out in the winter at the clubhouse after snowboarding’ type thing. We’re all about having fun, and rum is fun, ya know?”

The result is a rum that is literally bursting with flavor - I was greeted with a strong dose of vanilla that actually stunned the alcoholic bite that drinkers become accustomed to when drinking Captain. I personally recommend holding the Coke and pouring your first taste neat because a seasoned aficionado will appreciate the candy-like flavor that dominates the experience from nose to tongue.

The concept for the branding of the rum came from matching tattoos that JP and Monika got after being married. The flying pig, embedded into their bodies just as it is embedded into the logo of the brand, represents, according to JP, “Making the impossible possible. I flew half way around the world to be with her. It’s kind of our love story.” Clearly JP and Monika’s product is representative of their love and, from what I can tell, a story as romantic as theirs happens about as often as a pig flies. Corny? Not in the least. Come on now. It’s imagery.

Art lies at the heart of their brand and as such Krause Family Spirits works with local art galleries and shops to promote their rum, pouring it at events and shows that target their market of adventure seekers that are, as JP put it, “on their way up.” For those with a sweet tooth, Twisted Cream ice cream here in Denver is using the rum to make a peaches and cream flavor with a little kick. “Having our product tied with another local company that makes ice cream? That’s what it’s all about. Being tied with local companies. It’s working for us and hopefully it makes sense to them.”

I’m sure it does. Their business is a product of their lives together, just like relationships are the product of shared experience. They can continue to grow, or they can evolve to take different paths, as long as down the line all parties can reminisce about it over a good meal and a stiff cocktail. That is what makes life worth living and relationships worth having. “We write ‘go pig’ on the bottle because it’s how we live our life,” JP says. “They say go big or go home. I didn’t just find a girl, fall in love with her, and travel halfway around the world to marry her because I want to take it easy. Being a chef, there are times when you get so many tickets and you’re so behind and so stressed out that it’s easy to get caught up with stress. It takes a certain personality to pursue your passions and we have that, people in Colorado have that. You can’t be afraid to put yourself out there and stand for what you believe.”

That’s it right there - there are plenty of people from high school, college, and beyond that I have not stayed in contact with and I’m left to think that there is good reason for that. We grew together for a while until our personality or our passions went a different way and the lid was tightened on the relationship. Once that seal is on there, it takes two parties to uncork it again.

Squealrum.com

Fluidcoffeebar.com - 501 E. 19th Ave in Denver


Tim Wenger is a Denver-based microshiner, journalist, musician, and avid snowboarder. Check in with him at @timwenger1 and catch more of his work at Colorado Music Buzz, Snowboard Colorado, and his weekly talk show on worldviral.tv

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