Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey
WHAT: RMGA January Program – Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey
WHEN: January 12, 2015, 6:30 pm – 7:00 pm networking followed by a historical presentation and tour.
WHERE: Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey, 200 South Kalamath Street, Denver, CO 80223.
PROGRAM: Enter Stranahan’s and go right into the lunch room for the networking. As stated on their website, “Stranahan’s is the first COLORADO-BORN WHISKEY, and is dedicated to making the SMOOTHEST, MOST DISTINCTIVELY-FLAVORED WHISKEY on the market using hand-crafted distilling techniques and COLORADO’S FINEST natural ingredients. Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey is INDEPENDENT AND FAMILY OWNED”.
PARKING: Street parking on both sides of West Byers Place or park in Stranahan’s parking lot.
Guide Line Review
Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey
Stranahan’s whiskey is the first American single malt and the first Rocky Mountain (and Colorado) whiskey. Its beginnings lie in Stranahan’s barn near Woody Creek (Aspen area) in 2004. In 2009, the operation moved to the current location and it now owns the whole city block.
Stranahan’s has been distilling whiskey for 10 years. All of their product must be aged for a minimum of two years. The aging occurs in barrels of white oak that have been charred inside. When a whiskey batch is bottled, that batch is a blend of 2, 3, 4, and 5 year old product.
The tour began in the distillery and the guide said the tour would travel from “grain to bottle”. The grain is malted barley, 80% Colorado grown with the remainder grown in the Rocky Mountain region. The barley is roasted and milled off-site by another company. The grain is loaded into the mash tun, and heated in water to a temperature of 160° F. The sugar in the malted barley dissolves into the water. The spent grain is given away to local ranchers to use as cattle feed. The raw barley liquid then moves to kettles where the liquid is heated to a temperature of 201° F to pasteurize it. The cooled, pasteurized liquid is sent through a whirlpool where most of the solids are spun out of the liquid.
Next, the liquid moves to fermentation vats; yeast is added. The yeast causes the alcohol to form as well as carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is allowed to escape into the environment. Since there is so little carbon dioxide escaping from this operation, there is no suffocation danger to the employees. The fermentation vats are sealed to better control the fermentation process. The vats are also jacketed with an outer layer so that the inner tank can be cooled rapidly by cold water flowing through the outer jacket. This is called “crash cooling”.
The fermentation requires about a week in the vats. Regulating the ABV (Alcohol by Volume) of the product requires controlling the ratio of sugar to yeast to fermentation time. The yeast strain is proprietary to Stranahan’s. They are able to skim off the cooled (now dormant) yeast from the fermentation vats and reuse it. The yeast can be used up to six times and is produced by a Colorado Springs laboratory.
The liquid, now the consistency of “flat beer” without the hops, moves to the distilling process. The copper stills were specially designed and built for Stranahan’s. They are smaller than what would be found in the larger distiller operations, and they are a combination of a pot and a column still. The larger of the stills holds 760 gallons.
In the stills the liquid is heated to a temperature between 174 °F and 2017F, the boiling point of alcohol at Denver’s elevation (water boils at 204 °F). The alcohol vapor is captured and cooled to a liquid, then run again through another still. After one run, the product is now 80 gallons of liquid and 80 proof (40% alcohol).
After the second run of evaporation, capturing and cooling, the product is poured off. The first part of the flow is called the “head,” and is separated from the following part of the flow. The “head” contains toxic alcohol, which is used around the facility as a cleanser! The next part of the flow is called the “heart.” The last part of the flow is called the “tail,” and is separated from the “heart”. The “tail” contains more water than the heart and all the harsh flavors. After the second run, the product is now clear as water and 140 proof (70% alcohol).
The product is mixed with water – Eldorado Springs (Colorado) Water. The product is then sealed in the “charred” white oak barrels. The “charring” gives the whiskey its distinctive color and flavor. The barrels hold 52.8 gallons. The product is now 110 proof (55% alcohol). The product is placed into the narrow opening of the barrel (the “bung” hole), using a specially designed and built nozzle that resembles a nozzle from a gasoline pump. The makers of the gasoline nozzle fabricated a food-quality version for Stranahan’s and they now manufactures these nozzles regularly for the distilling industry.
The barrels are stored in one of several storage rooms (called the Rock House”) on-site. They have discovered that there is no difference in the product aging whether the barrels are stored vertically or horizontally. The vertical method makes the most efficient use of their space. The storage rooms are maintained at a constant temperature and humidity. Part of the humidity comes from the whiskey barrels themselves because the oak is porous and some of the whisky evaporates out of the barrel.
The guide recounted the distillery legend of the angels taking some of the aging whiskey. For years, distillers couldn’t figure out how there was less whiskey in the sealed barrel at the end of the aging process than at the beginning. Since there were no signs of the barrel being opened, the distillers chalked up the loss to “angels”. We now know otherwise.
The wooden barrels are made in Lebanon, Missouri. The barrel staves are cut to fit together without adhesives, metal bands are wrapped around the outside of the barrel. The pressure of the liquid inside the barrel keeps the staves from collapsing inward, and the metal bands keep the barrel from exploding outward. Once the barrel is constructed, the inside is burned to obtain the necessary “char”. There are four levels of “charring”, with “one” being the lightest amount. Stranahan’s uses a number “three” level of “char”. When the barrels are empty, they are sold to a broker who then resells the barrels to others, including vintners who might want a whiskey flavor to their wine. Whiskey must age in the barrel a minimum of two years, according to government regulations.
Stranahan’s distillery is a small operation and relies on volunteers at bottling time – about three time a month. The bottling process is not automated; instead the bottles are filled by gravity flow. About 30 volunteers selected by lottery from Stranahan’s volunteer database. The crew arrives on the day of their shift, either morning or afternoon. Stranahan’s makes them comfortable with snacks and music. The crew caps the bottles and apply the labels which includes “Spirt of the Rockies” in the look of a sash. Each label has been individually signed by an employee, who gets to add a brief message. The volunteers are thanked with a bottle of the whiskey they just packaged! The guide reminded us that the tour moved from “grain to bottle”.
We than entered the tasting room. The guide stood behind a formidable-looking, heavily built table topped with tasting glasses. The guide explained that the tasting glasses were fat at the bottom “to create a reservoir of the whiskey when we tipped the mouth of the glass toward our nose”. This way we could get a “great” smell of the aroma without spilling the liquid inside.
We then followed his procedure for appreciating the whiskey. First, we held the clear glass of the amber liquid up to the light to gauge its color and clarity. Next, we tipped the mouth of the glass to our faces and breathed in the aroma through our mouth and nose. Then, we sipped a bit of the whiskey to hold on our tongue. This desensitizes the mouth and tongue to the sting of the alcohol so that we can appreciate the flavors in the next phase. After swallowing that little bit, we tipped about half the remainder into our mouths. At this point he encouraged us to swish the liquid around in our mouths and “chew” it to get the flavor all through our palette. Then we could swallow. Now we described the flavors that we encountered.
Finally, he added a few drops of water (Eldorado Spring Water!) to our tasting glasses and invited us to “chew” this liquid. After we swallowed we talked about how the favor changed with the addition of the water. Water, he advised us, also takes away some of the “spice” or “sting” from the whiskey. He told us that some people prefer the added water to the straight whiskey.
After the tasting experience, we moved to the Gift Shop and lobby where we purchased bottles of Stranahan’s whiskey, shirts, hats, glasses, and other merchandise.
At the time of our visit, Stranahan’s was sold only in Colorado. Now their product is sold in areas beyond Colorado.
Tour buses are accepted if Stranahan’s knows ahead of time the day/time. There’s plenty of parking space for a motorcoach! The distillery Lounge is open Fridays and Saturdays, 12:30 pm – 8:30 pm.
--- Thank you Eileen and Mike Pearl and Kay Willson
Content copyright 2016. Rocky Mountain Guides Association. All rights reserved.
Web Hosting Companies