TEN GINS TO KNOW
Breckenridge Gin
From Breckenridge Distillery
Being the world’s highest distillery – 9,600 feet – gives you a leg up (pun intended) on the competition. All of their spirits (gin included) are blended with water from Rocky Mountain snow melt. Although founder, Bryan Nolt, is a self-described “whiskey nerd,” Breckenridge Distillery makes an excellent contemporary style gin, that has an exceptional balance of floral, citrus and spice notes. In the UK, gin lovers can get their hands on the gin through Amazon and The Whisky Exchange.
CapRock Gin
From Jack Rabbit Hill Farm
CapRock was launched in 2008, and is distilled from a base spirit of local apples and winter wheat. Lance Henson was also ambitious in his botanical choice and his gin is an early example of American contemporary style gin. CapRock Gin features lavender and rosebuds and has a generally floral flavour profile. Finally, the gin is cut with water filtered through volcanic rock high in the Rockies. Again, The Whisky Exchange have stocked CapRock Gin in the UK.
Denver Dry Gin
From Mile High Spirits
Classic gin fans will enjoy Denver Dry Gin. It was designed in the spirit of Bombay Sapphire. Bold and juniper led, it features a handful of other classic gin botanicals including lemon, orange, coriander, and grains of paradise. The botanicals are macerated before the gin is distilled in a glass still.
If you stop by their expansive distillery and tasting space, right by the Colorado Rockies’ stadium in downtown Denver, I recommend trying one of their house infusions that span the shelf behind the bar. Denver Dry Gin infused with black pepper is a wonder served simply with tonic.
Dry Town Gin
From Old Elk Distillery
The gin starts with a base spirit consisting of four grains blended together into one mash: corn, rye, wheat and malted barley. The botanicals are macerated for eighteen hours, before being distilled and diluted with Rocky Mountain water.
“It took us 64 runs before we dialed in… we really wanted a gin that could stand up in any cocktail,” head distiller Kate Douglas says. The result is a citrus-forward gin with a camphoraceous sage finish ideal for fans of contemporary style Martinis.
Jackalope and Jenny
From Peach Street Distillers
Jackalope Gin uses a variety of locally picked juniper berries in their dry gin. Then their pear eau de vie uses fresh picked Palisade pears from Western Colorado’s vast fruit orchards. The two spirits are then combined and rested for a minimum of nine months
in barrels which formerly held Colorado straight Bourbon.
Leopold Brothers Navy Strength Gin From Leopold Bros. Distillery
In 2008, Scott and Todd Leopold moved their Ann Arbor, Michigan based distillery to their home region of Denver, Colorado. In the early 2010’s the American cocktail revival was booming, but there were no Navy Strength gins on the American market. After being approached by a distributor behind a well-known cocktail bar, Leopold Brothers began developing their Navy Strength
Gin. They doubled the juniper from their regular gin, amped up the citrus and even added bergamot. Released in 2012, their Navy Strength Gin is powerfully herbal with a citrus-forward core. Master of Malt currently has Leopold’s Gin available for fans in the UK.
Pink Bear Gin
From Bouck Brothers Distilling
While the gin is certainly pink, Bouck Brothers’ Hibiscus Infused Gin is as far from a cloying or sweetened gin as you can get. Their mission statement is to look for things, “No one has tasted before.” Pink Bear Gin was inspired by a peek at a chef’s spice cabinet and a serendipitous Colorado forest hike, where distiller Matt Wyant found the perfect, ripe juniper berries.
The hibiscus is infused after distillation and the resulting gin is fiery with cinnamon notes and chamomile tea with hibiscus and foraged Colorado juniper overtones.
Rose Gin
From Syntax Spirits
Head distiller Heather Bean, harnesses her background in science to distil a completely grain-to-glass gin. Syntax Spirits source all of their wheat from within 100 miles of their Greely, Colorado-based distillery and their water is sourced from the Cache la Poudre River (which, as you might expect, its headwaters are in the Rocky Mountains).
Heather uses a combination of maceration and gin basket to get the flavour of her floral-forward botanical selection including rose petals, lavender flower and three kinds of citrus.
Spirit Hound Gin
From Spirit Hound Distillers
Just outside Lyons, Colorado is St. Vrain Creek. In the summer months, you’re apt to find tubing, fishing and kayaks navigating class five rapids.
You’ll also find the team behind Spirit Hound Gin picking their juniper berries from plants that grow on the banks of the river.
Spirit Hound uses a gin basket which holds the local juniper and a few other spices like cinnamon and clove, to create a slightly spicy contemporary style gin, that has a bit of Colorado terroir in every bottle.
Spring 44 Old Tom Gin From Spring 44 Distilling
Oh, the things you’ll do for love – Spring 44 began by a passion for pure Rocky Mountain water so great that they’d drive miles down a four-wheel drive trail and haul it back to the distillery themselves.
Their Old Tom is rested in American Oak and has a juniper, flamed orange peel notes with only a subtle sweetness to it.
The mystique and flavour of Colorado is a recurring theme among the over one hundred distilleries in the state