Whiskey: Water of Life

Most of you know my absolute adoration for the stuff. Many of you may argue that it is beyond love, perhaps bordering on obsession. Being from the South, one may think that I was conceived from it, born in a field of grain. That most certainly there is a strain in my DNA directly connected to the brown elixir. Funny thing is, I didn’t really start drinking the stuff until I moved to Colorado. I don’t recall what my poison was when my residence was in Georgia, something clear and clean. But whiskey, conjured up visions of Kappa Deltas putting straws in pints of Jim Beam freshly plucked from the freezer. Whiskey just seemed SO college, and lord knows I didn’t need any reminders of that.

But then, ‘round about 1997, I met Mark- Maker’s Mark. I couldn’t help to fall, so deeply, so shamelessly in love. I couldn’t resist the arrant smoothness, the alluring color of caramel (pronounced care•aahh•mel), the aroma was everything southern- spicy sweet. As most good love affairs go, it was intoxicating from the start, we spent nights together just sitting on the back porch- a lot of nights on the back porch. I found any excuse to spend just a savoring moment with Mark. Thus, my love affair with whiskey, and most directly, my love affair with Bourbon began.

I am not going to pontificate on the differences in Whiskey. Like wine, there are geographical differences, there are strict rules that regulate certain types, and well they don’t all taste the same. I will also spare you the history lesson (for one, the jury is still out on the origins), but it may be safe to say that some monk somewhere discovered the stuff. I will tell you that the word origins of whiskey derived from the Gaelic, uisge-beatha, which literally means “water of life”.
I will also tell you that Bourbon is a county in Kentucky, and the whiskey that flows from that county has some rules:

1. The grain mixture must be at least 51% corn

2. It must be distilled to no more than 160 proof

3. It must be aged in new American oak barrels, toasted to a fine char

4. Bourbon must be natural. Only water can be added.

Bourbon, like most whiskey is steeped in tradition, how you make it, how you drink it- stays pretty much the same. So, I was a bit intrigued when a batch of boys down on Market Street in Denver, CO decided they were going to start making whiskey. I started to get puffy and territorial, but equally excited and anxious.

The story of Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey is one of kismet- a destiny encounter between two men that had an affinity for fine whiskey. I will spare you the story here, but if you’re interested, go to www.stranahans.com. It’s a small batch process, so once a batch is complete they throw a net out to volunteers to help bottle. Our friend Shannon somehow found out about this net and got us on the email list. I received an email from Jake, the head distiller, that I “made the cut”. “Sweet Jesus". A day bottling whiskey, I couldn’t imagine any manual labor more rewarding.

We were to arrive at 10 a.m. Upon arrival; there were ten or so of us shuffling around writing on nametags, putting boxes together, writing on labels. It was rather quiet due to the high hangover ratio. Around 10:30 we were all wrangled into the distillery to begin assemblage. The smell of whiskey cascading down bottles from metal teets, the clank of bottles shuffling down a table, the knock-knock of wood atop the closure, the sound and smell of the heat gun as it seals the very essence of life into a bottle that awaits its consumption. For five hours we all worked with great fervor to make sure that Batch #20 was successfully bottled and boxed. We didn’t have any idea of how much liquid would keep filling the teet reservoir; we just kept doing our jobs. All of these people were from all corners of the city, but with one common love of whiskey.

At the end Jake gave us a tour and a very in depth discussion on whiskey and stills and distillation- so if you want the details, go see Jake. While in the rack room, there was a call out that the pizza had arrived. We all gathered back into the distillery around a table around a woman that was pouring Colorado whiskey out of a ladle out of pot. At first sip, it feels that homemade, with all of the love and care and attention that a Southern mother would put into a blackberry cobbler. This whiskey is good, dare I say near perfect. It has character, yet is so smooth. It lacks the bite, but doesn’t kill you with sweetness. You can tell that with great care and profound purity that this whiskey is crafted.

I believe a new love affair outside of Kentucky has begun.