American Single Malt Whiskey is an exciting and quickly growing area of the whiskey world. Traditionally a lot of people think Scotch when you say Single Malt, but that has really changed over the last decade or so. American Single Malts have exploded, and Colorado’s first legal distillery made it’s mark on the state and country with their Single Malt Whiskey.
Typically barley is the grain used for single malts, but rye has been used as well. The barley is malted, turning the starch into fermentable sugars which is then fermented and distilled into the spirit. Smokey flavors are often associated with Single Malt whisky, due to the use of peat moss to heat the barley stopping the malting process. That infuses the smokey flavor, but hot air can be used to prevent that.
After fermenting, the brew is moved to a still where it goes through the same process any other spirits go through to produce the clear whiskey ready to go into the barrel.
At Stranahan’s, your tour begins in the brew area where the malted grain is fermented. Our tour guide was extremely energetic and knowledgeable, engaging everyone there and clearly enjoyed talking about Stranahan’s whiskey. I am not going to go through everything that was talked about, because I really think it’s worth it to go hear for yourself.
After, you move to the stills where that fermented malted barley is transformed into the white dog whiskey ready to be barreled and aged. The copper stills help to create a pure and delicious spirit. Part of Stranahan’s process is to make sure that the heads and tails of the spirit are cut off. Not only can these parts of the distillate be harmful to your health, they are often attributed to causing hangovers. One of the goals of Stranahan’s, according to our guide, is to make sure you enjoy not only the night, but the next day as well.
Once you have seen the stills producing the white dog whiskey, the tour moves to the rickhouse, where you get your first taste of the whiskey produced at Stranahan’s. This concrete rack area is filled with all kinds of barrels and the original still that has a story so cool, you really have to hear it in person. (It involves a drunk bear.)
Next, you go through the bottling area to the tasting room at the end of the tour, where we got to try a couple more great whiskies and were given some “drunk proof” whiskey glasses that always stand up. Of course, on our tour someone had to try it and knocked it off the table and onto the floor, shattering it. This time, it was not one of us!
Overall, I was blown away by the tour. It was friendly, entertaining, and informative. At the end, we got to sit at the bar and taste through 3 Snowflake bottles which I have never tried before. I truly believe this is a distillery tour that is worth every second and every penny. We also went home with a bottle of the Staff Selection single barrel, which was a fantastic bottle.
One of the more cool parts of the tour was learning that you can put your name on the list to volunteer to bottle, where you get to spend 4 hours bottling the whiskey, and then I believe you can take some home. If you are interested in joining the bottling crew, check out this link here: https://www.stranahans.com/bottling-crew/
An overall fantastic experience, I would also like to give a shout out to our Tour Guide, Henry the Corgi and his human Katie Sue. Check her out on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/katiesuevv
She was absolutely great to have as a guide, and made the entire experience excellent.
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