In this month's [2]5280 [2] we take a look at Denver's burgeoning brewery scene [3], which shows no signs of slowing down. And now, in the hills beyond the Mile High City, there's a new distillery to add to Colorado's boozy landscape. This past weekend, Spirit Hound Distillers [4] had its grand opening in Lyons. “We are making very small-batch gin, whiskey, and other spirits on our own homemade stills,” says Spirit Hound president Matthew Rooney, “and we’re using a wealth of local ingredients in our creations.”

Spirit Hound's gin is made with juniper berries freshly picked from trees on company-owned property near the St. Vrain river in Lyons. “The berries often go from tree to gin in just a couple of hours,” Rooney says, “and that gives our gin an incredibly fresh and ‘wild crafted’ character." (Spirit Hound's head distiller, Craig Englehorn, was the original brewer at Oskar Blues [5].) With a tasting room that seats about 40 people, Spirit Hound is in the process of installing a 15-barrel brewing system that it will eventually use to make whiskey. “Distillation has a long history in the U.S. and Colorado,” Rooney says. “We’re going to connect locals and visitors to that rich past, while we write a new chapter or two in that history.”

—Image [6]courtesy of Shutterstock.