291 Colorado American Whiskey

About 291 Colorado Whiskey

291 is an award-winning small batch distillery located in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The comparatively young operation was established in 2011 by Michael Myers, a New York City fashion photographer with one cowboy boot always in the Old West. Seeing 9/11 unfold with his own eyes, he made the decision to move to Colorado Springs. Ever since growing up on the rural family farms in Georgia and Tennessee, he has carried with him a vision of a cowboy entering a bar and ordering a bottle. The vision inevitably became reality and the bottle became 291 Colorado Whiskey — as fate would have it, on the exact date of the 10-year anniversary of 9/11.

Myers’ previous life as a photographer permeates the distilling process to this day as the original still was fashioned from old copper photogravure plates he once used. Each drop today passes through it, since it is currently being used as a doubler. The whiskey that’s made from scratch has a peculiar stage in the mashing process where finished beer is reserved and added to the next batch. They dubbed this technique unique to Distillery 291 the El Paso County Process. They age their whiskey in heavy charred white oak barrels and finish it with their neighbor’s toasted aspen staves, added to each barrel. Then the whiskey is cut with clear Rocky Mountain water before being bottled, corked and labeled by hand.