A high-end liquor company with national distribution has opened a new tasting room in downtown Aspen — just half an hour away from the ranch where it all began.
Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey was founded two decades ago by a couple of Woody Creekers: Volunteer firefighter Jess Graber met the legendary physicist and businessman George Stranahan in 1998, when one of Stranahan’s barns caught ablaze.
Graber helped put out the fire, and afterward, the two got to talking. Graber knew Stranahan had founded Flying Dog Brewery, and saw a window of opportunity for his own alcohol enterprise.
“I said, ‘Hey , George, … I do a little hobby distilling in my spare time, and you’ve got this other barn right here, and it's April, it's too cold for me to do it in my horse shed — that barn would be great,” Graber recalled during an interview at the new Stranahan’s Whiskey Lodge in Aspen. “He goes,’ Oh, that's a good idea.’”
At the time, Graber said, it was more of a passion project than a money-making operation; homemade liquor had lost some of its luster among high-mountain adventurers at the time.
“I wasn’t selling it, I was just giving it away as presents, because it was kind of unique,” he said. “Colorado being Colorado, everybody was more into the hippie lettuce back then than they were into, you know, moonshine.”
But eventually, Coloradans found their taste for whiskey again. And Graber found success with barley ingredients, including some leftovers from Flying Dog beer.
“I said, ‘You know what, George, if we do this, you can pump it over the roof to me, and we'll call the whiskey Stranahan’s,’” Graber said.
Stranahan thought that was a good idea too, and became a partner in the business. They opened a facility in Denver in 2004 — the first legal distillery in Colorado since prohibition — and found such success that the brand now sells more American single-malt whiskey than any other company on the market. Graber has also launched another whiskey brand, Tin Cup; like Stranahan’s, it’s cut with water from the Rocky Mountains.
Graber said he didn’t expect to make it this far with Stranahan’s Whiskey, which still pays tribute to its late namesake.
But “now that it's gone as far as it's gone,” Graber said, “it's become very gratifying.”
The new Stranahan’s Whiskey Lodge on the Mill Street pedestrian mall held its grand opening last weekend with a celebration of the brand’s 20th anniversary. Fitting to its origins, the company will donate a percentage of the sales from an Aspen-exclusive whiskey bottle to the Aspen Fire Protection District.
