Latest news with #Stranahan's
Forbes
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
This Whiskey Just Cleaned Up At The 2025 San Francisco World Spirits Competition
DENVER, CO -FEBRUARY 18: Whisky being poured into a shoot glass at Stranahan's Colorado whisky, in ... More Denver Colorado, on February 23, 2017. (Photo by Amy Brothers /The Denver Post via Getty Images) If there's one thing Stranahan's knows how to do—besides distill award-winning American single malt—it's keep whiskey nerds lining up in tents at high altitude every winter like it's the Great American Barrel Migration. Their ultra-limited Snowflake release has long been the stuff of cultish devotion. This year? The devotion paid off. At the 2025 San Francisco World Spirits Competition, Stranahan's raked in seven Gold and Double Gold medals, including top honors for Snowflake Redcloud Peak, which was named a Best of Class finalist in the American Single Malt category. Not to be outdone, Mountain Angel 12-Year also earned a Double Gold and finalist status. Basically: if this were whiskey summer camp, Stranahan's just won all the merit badges. 'We stand in elite single malt territory, with a floor of Gold at SFWSC,' said Head Blender Justin Aden, who's been quietly blending up a storm inside a former Denver theater-turned-barrel room called Rackhouse 215. 'It's all a testament to our 21 years of toil, perfecting one recipe and one recipe only.' Let's pause there. One recipe. Twenty-one years. Multiple awards. And an entire rickhouse dedicated to barrels finished in everything from Sauternes to mezcal. No big deal. Red Cloud Peak Stranahan's Snowflake is an annual release that hardcore fans camp out for, sometimes days in advance, with lawn chairs, whiskey-fueled optimism, and a collective tolerance for Colorado winter. Redcloud Peak, this year's edition, is a high-wire blend of sherry, port, Sauternes, and other fortified wines that—somehow—doesn't tip into sticky sweetness. During a tasting when the whiskey was released, Aden described the process of creating Snowflake sort of like a whiskey séance. 'It starts to reveal itself to you,' he says. 'Some barrels you think you'll use for sure don't make the cut. Others surprise you.' He tasted through hundreds of barrels to build the final blend, composed of about a dozen casks. Stranahans Aden, who joined Stranahan's in May 2022, dove headfirst into the distillery's extensive barrel inventory to shape Red Cloud Peak. 'You have all year to work on it. You keep sampling and sampling and trying things mixed together, and it starts to reveal itself to you,' Aden explained during a tasting of the components that went into the whiskey. Unlike the previous year's Snowflake, which leaned heavily into smoky, mezcal-cask influences, Aden knew he wanted this year's blend to steer clear of peat and smoke. Instead, he focused on fruit-forward barrels and an array of fortified wine finishes, including Sherry, Sauternes, and Madera. 'All I knew for certain was there'd be no smoke, no peat in this year's version,' Aden said. 'But other than that, you come in completely unencumbered.' Stranahan's Snowflake releases are built from what Aden calls 'miniature blends' — smaller coupes that each showcase a specific flavor style. Red Cloud Peak's final composition includes: 'Building the blend is like building a house — you start with a cornerstone,' Aden said. 'Sometimes you think you're going one way, and the barrels lead you somewhere completely different.' The process is painstaking. Aden and his team tasted hundreds of barrels over the course of the year (tough work, I know), narrowing them down to about 12 to 16 for the final blend — a manageable number that allows the character of each cask to still be felt. Stranahan's Stranahan's Colorado location gives its whiskey a distinctive aging profile. Unlike the humid rickhouses of Kentucky, Denver's dry climate pulls more water than alcohol from the barrels, gradually concentrating the proof over time. 'We fill our barrels at 110 proof, which is a big departure from the industry standard,' Aden explained. 'It enables the fact that our whiskey proof goes up as it ages to be very gradual.' This slow and steady evaporation results in spirits that maintain bright fruit and vibrant structure — characteristics that shine through in Red Cloud Peak's lush, layered palate. Barrels at Stranahan's Snowflake isn't just about rare barrels and special finishes. For Aden, it's also about carrying forward a pioneering craft whiskey legacy. 'Twenty years ago, if you didn't have a little nepotism in Kentucky or Tennessee, you just weren't breaking in. Craft distilling changed that,' Aden said. 'Stranahan's deserves to be recognized at the top of that list.' As craft distilling in America boomed from just a handful of operations to more than 2,000 today, Stranahan's stayed the course: refusing to source whiskey, focusing exclusively on American single malt, and pushing creative boundaries year after year. Snowflake's continued success — and the dedicated fans who camp out to get a bottle — are proof that Stranahan's spirit of innovation and adventure is alive and well under Aden's leadership. 'We have people who haven't missed one in ten years,' Aden said. 'That kind of loyalty — that's rare. That's something you have to earn every single time.' Stranahan's Lineup Snowflake may get the Instagram buzz, but Stranahan's other bottles are no slackers. Here's how the rest of the lineup performed: 'It's easy for me to wax about this part of the job,' Aden says. 'To take the culmination of so much hard work, put it together, and have it sing—there's nothing like it.' He's talking about blending, of course—but it's also a fair way to describe what Stranahan's is up to more broadly. In a still-emerging category, the distillery isn't chasing trends so much as quietly refining its voice – and winning some awards in the process.
Forbes
15-05-2025
- General
- Forbes
This Brewer's Cask Single Malt Doesn't Let Beer Overpower The Whiskey
Stranahan's Diamond Peak Brewer's Cask Colorado-based Stranahan's celebrated their 20th anniversary in 2024, and today, the Denver distillery is one of the oldest producers of American Single Malt. (A category of spirit that was recognized by the federal government this past January.) While the distillery is known for a wide variety of specialty releases and cask finishes, one of its latest bottles pays homage to its origins and Colorado's storied brewing culture. Fortunately for whiskey drinkers, this is one collaboration where the beer enhances the drinking experience instead of overpowering it. All Stranahan's single malt initially ages in new charred American oak barrels. After an initial aging period, often between four and six years, some of that whiskey is transferred to a variety of other casks for extended finishing. As someone who has seen their operation up close, the distillery's deep stocks feature a dizzying array of finishing casks, including barrels that previously held a broad diversity of wines, as well as spirits including mezcal, rum, peated Scotch, and more. To focus in on a single type of secondary barrel aging, Diamond Peak is Stranahan's annual, nationwide bottling that highlights 'one specific variety of speciality cask-finished whiskies.' The 2025 version of Diamond Peak—the fourth edition overall—is titled 'Local Brewer's Cask.' To create the expression, Stranahan's lent their used American single malt casks to four Denver-area breweries. Local beer was aged in those barrels, after which they were dumped and returned to Stranahan's (or 'boomeranged' according an evocatively worded press release). Those barrels were then refilled with Stranahan's single malt, which aged for an additional period of between one and one-and-a-half years, depending on the barrel. The liquid in those final barrels was blended to create this year's Diamond Peak release. Previous versions of Diamond Peak featured whiskey that underwent additional aging in casks that once held Bushmills, extra añejo tequila, and Caribbean rum. (Bushmills and Stranahan's are both owned by Proximo Spirits.) But this latest, beer-influenced Diamond Peak gets extra points due to the nostalgia factor. In fact, the first version of what would become Stranahan's single malt was distilled from beer mash made by Colorado's Flying Dog Brewery. Stranahan's has long maintained relationships and collaborated with local breweries on a variety of projects. But the proof is ultimately in the taste. So how does this latest Diamond Peak stack up? The nose starts off with some classic scents familiar to longtime Stranahan's drinkers: dried orange peel, candied ginger, rum raisin ice cream, fresh drip coffee, and heavily spiced fruitcake. At least based on aroma, it's a little funkier and more intensely spiced than some other recent expressions from the distillery—but it's certainly not overpoweringly hoppy or otherwise tilted more toward beer than the base whiskey. (A trough some beer barrel-finished American whiskeys can easily fall into, for better or for worse.) The palate leads with some light tropical fruit—fresh pineapple, ripe papaya—with some tannins in the realm of cigar box and fermented tea leaves. Birch and cedar build mildly at the midpalate, along with mulberries and a touch of hard apple cider. The flavor is quite pronounced for 90 proof (frankly a bit more than I was expecting), which leads to a balanced finish that once again leans into a variety of fruits with enough oak to cut through the sweetness. This latest iteration of Stranahan's Diamond Peak is now available at the distillery for $79.99 and at select retailers (where prices may vary).
