Distillery 291 Flagship Bourbon and Rye Flight

When I was in Colorado for Thanksgiving, we made a trip down to Colorado Springs to see the Garden of the Gods and Distillery 291, an award winning Colorado bourbon distillery that now boasts a line of 12 Colorado whiskies.  

Distillery 291 was founded by Michael Myers (no, not that one), a native of the American southeast who lived in Georgia and the legendary whiskey producing state of Tennessee as a youth. Myers had a passion for the Old West and wanted to produce the sort of whiskey that an old west bartender might slam down on the bar when you said "give me a whiskey!" He built his first still with copper plates he had once used for photography, and 12 years later 291 Colorado Whiskey is still producing spirits by hand in locally made copper pot stills.

Craft distilleries are constantly trying to find new ways to produce a drinkable bourbon in less time, and Distillery 291 is no exception. All of the spirits I tried were straight whiskies aged a minimum of two years, but they were also all aged in 10 gallon barrels, which provides more surface area for the volume and speeds up the maturation process a bit, at least from the perspective of the contribution of the oak.  

While smaller barrels are fairly common in the craft distilling industry, what is not common is their unique finishing process, which uses #3 charred aspen staves for a week.  This definitely seems to help take some of the grain forwardness out of an otherwise young spirit, although it does have an interesting funk of its own. 

 Distillery 291 Flagship Bourbon and Rye Tasting Notes

Character is all around the 291 tasting room, starting with glassware made from the bottoms of 291's bottles and rough hewn tables made from cable reels.  Ordered a flight of the four core whiskies: Small Batch Bourbon, Barrel Proof Bourbon, Small Batch Rye, and Barrel Proof Rye. 

The bartender brought each spirit to the table one at a time and poured it for me, sharing the distillery's tasting notes and the mash bill and proof of each spirit as I tasted the lineup.  This is a bit of a different experience than I am used to, and it did make it a little harder to compare spirits to each other, but the experience was pleasurable and it did allow me to ask several questions along the way.

Distillery 291 Small Batch Bourbon

Mash bill of 80% corn, 19% malted rye and 1% malted barley. Aged in #3 char, 10 gallon American white oak barrels for two years. Finished with #3 char aspen staves for one week. 100 proof.

Nose: green apple, grain, vanilla
Palate: Caramel, dark cherry, leather
Finish: Long. Black pepper and cherry, grain

Distillery 291 Barrel Proof Bourbon

Mash bill of 80% corn, 19% malted rye and 1% malted barley. Aged in #3 char, 10 gallon American white oak barrels for two years. Finished with #3 char aspen staves for one week. 126.8 proof.

Nose: caramel, vanilla
Palate: caramel, leather, cherry
Finish: pepper, caramel, cherry, wood

Distillery 291 Small Batch Rye

Mash bill of 61% malted rye, 39% corn. Aged in #3 char, 10 gallon American white oak barrels for two years. Finished with #3 char aspen staves for one week. 100 proof.

Nose: Wintergreen, fresh cut grass
Palate: White peppercorn, grain, leather
Finish: Mild, light pepper and grain moderate length

Distillery 291Cask Strength Rye

Mash bill of 61% malted rye, 39% corn. Aged in #3 char, 10 gallon American white oak barrels for two years. Finished with #3 char aspen staves for one week. 128.1 proof.

Nose: Butterscotch, grain, oak
Palate: Coffee, dark chocolate, butterscotch, pepper
Finish: Pepper, leather, spearmint

Closing thoughts on my visit to Distillery 291

I ended up bringing home a bottle of the Small Batch Bourbon, but I could have been happy with any of the bottles I tried. If you're in Colorado springs, its definitely worth stopping in to the distillery to taste some of these spirits yourself.  Next time I'm in the area, I'd like to sample some of the special releases, of which there were several available when I was in.  

I'd also encourage you to check out the Garden of the Gods, which is one of the most beautiful natural stone formations I have seen in my travels and well worth navigating the large crowd of visitors.