Making spirits on the mountain: The Spirit of Islay alive in Colorado. Rick Thomas Distillery will open its Scottish-style distillery in 2025. Right, Declan and Brian Watts pose in front of the new building. PHOTOS BY BARBARA HARDT[/caption]
Black Hawk’s history of distilling spirits came long before it was known as a gambling destination, and the City would like to return to its roots with the advent of Artisans’ Point.
The project is a mostly undeveloped 22-acre piece of land above town on Miner’s Mesa. Black Hawk would like to fill Artisans’ Point with ten or so newly built small-batch distilleries and breweries, each producing its own liquid assets on site as part of a collective of adult-beverage companies.
The Rick Thomas Distillery, at 830 Miners Road, was the first to break ground and recently finished their construction that began in 2021. The distilling of corn whiskey will soon begin and the end product is slated for late 2023. The flavor profile will be younger and smoother, says Plant Manager/Master Distiller Declan Watts, the grandson of the late Rick Thomas.
He says single-malt whiskey will be the focus, taking up over fifty percent of production. Other spirits distilled will be bourbon, blue bourbon, rye, corn whiskey, and blue corn whiskey. The cooling tower is located outside next to a chute that dumps spent grain. The spent grain is collected by farmers who feed it to their cattle.
Silos outside contain 1,000 bushels of corn, roughly 50,000 pounds. All of their grain is sourced from Colorado; the corn from the Whiskey Sisters and the barley, rye, and wheat from the San Luis Valley. They will start production as soon as the State grants their license.
Inside the brand-spanking new Scottish-style distillery, a huge grain room contains equipment that is digitally calibrated to a high-tech interface located on the wall. The room is temperature-controlled and fully integrated. The integrated system controls the temperature, volume, and fermentation.
The mashing product, grain and water, is heated to 170 degrees. The addition of bacteria and yeast add flavor. The starch from the grain gets converted to sugar and gets squeezed with 3,000 pounds of pressure.
From there, the mixture gets pumped into four tanks, each holding 1,320 gallons. The stills are one hundred percent copper, which removes sulfur products. At this point the spirits can test around 75 percent ABV (alcohol by volume), and then are diluted down to 62.5 percent ABV.
The arid climate and high altitude cause more water to evaporate than alcohol. Methanol is the first product to come off and is cut out and tracked. A lot of early products are also removed.
Watts said the great thing about distilling is combining different flavors from bacteria and yeast during the fermentation process, which adds complex layers. He spent time in Scotland studying their iconic whiskey-making traditions.
They will be producing almost three hundred 750 mL bottles per barrel and will be able to fill 700 bottles per hour ideally. All their products undergo rigorous testing that is submitted to the State.
In a couple of years, there will be a family-friendly tasting room that will offer small batches of different spirits to suit different tastes, along with outdoor games like cornhole.
The barrel storage room had a pleasant, earthy aroma since the barrels are delivered with some whiskey still inside to prevent them from drying out. Since the ideal wood for barrels is white oak, they are often imported from Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, and Kentucky.
Upon exiting the distillery, one can understand why the design for the building required a 173 mph wind resistance, meaning thirty percent more steel, as the sweeping terrain creates quite a bit of wind current. The family-owned distillery would like to also purchase the land directly behind them, which currently houses some historical wood structures.
Watts attended Colorado State University and spent time abroad in Scotland studying with different distillers that precede American distillers by hundreds of years. Though prohibition-era bootlegging is long gone, Black Hawk seeks to remember its rich history by reviving the tradition of distilling, with the Rick Thomas Distillery setting a high precedent for the artisans that will follow.
Look for Rick Thomas single malt whiskey in stores around early 2024 or come for a tasting as soon as 2025 at their new location at 830 Miners Road, Black Hawk.
