Spirit Of The Week: Distillery 291 Experimental Batch #14
“I wanted a whiskey that was Western: You’re watching a movie and a dude comes into a saloon, and you want to do that shot or drink it deep.”
We’ve covered the wonderful whiskey of Michael Myers before, including his inaugural All Rye edition. A creative 100 percent malted rye whiskey using a 50/50 blend of German and Colorado grain, the concept for All Rye was to begin incorporating malted rye from their home state.
This curiosity is a bedrock philosophy of Myers’ since day one, when Distillery 291 was first founded with a 45-gallon pot that to this day distills every drop of their whiskey. Inspired by Buffalo Trace’s wildly coveted Experimental Series, Myers then created his own “E” line in 2015 so he could continue taking chances.
The inaugural Batch #1 was a mash blend made with a cooking technique learned from Hall of Fame whiskeymaker Dave Pickerell using half his ‘cooked up’ and Myers’ own half ‘cooked down’ mash, which was then poured together in a tank to ferment together. The E batches have come out consistently ever since, and are now a point of pride for the Colorado Springs distillery.
“What I wanted to do with this Experimental Batch [#14 and #15] was to get some note of Kentucky in my whiskey,” Myers tells me across a table at Wally’s, one of Los Angeles’ premier spirit retailers. “My whiskey is so Colorado, so big, so different than Kentucky whiskey, I was like, ‘Well, it’d be interesting if my rye and bourbon had this little Kentucky note to it.’”
So what his Distillery 291 team did, led by Myers and Head Distiller Eric Jett, was take their two main recipes—80 percent corn / 19 percent malted rye / 1 percent malted barley bourbon mashbill and 61 percent malted rye / 39 percent corn rye mash bill—and age them normally in their traditional barrels: first-fill, deep charred virgin American white oak sourced from The Barrel Mill in Avon, Minnesota.
Then, the rye (Experimental Batch #14) and bourbon (Experimental Batch #15) were each poured into used bourbon barrels from Kentucky. The origin of these barrels remains a mystery—not because it’s a state secret, mind you, but simply because Myers doesn’t actually know. Regardless, each whiskey aged a total of over four years in its twin casks.
“The finish took a while because within the first year, maybe six months, we tasted it and it just wasn’t doing what I wanted it to be doing. And so I’m like, ‘Let’s sit on it,’” the Distillery 291 founder explains as we take sips of his various wares.
“Then we started tasting it over the last six months and were like, ‘This is really good!’ There’s a slight note to Kentucky on the nose, and then it’s just really soft and different than my rye or bourbon. I mean you still know it’s 291 hands down, but it’s just prettier, it’s got more age to it.”
It’s lines like this Experimental Batch, the All Rye and their Bad Guy and Good Guy collection that have brought the distillery renown in its relative young age. As evidence, you could point to its recent distinction as the “Brand Innovator of the Year” at the Icons of Whisky America Awards 2024 earlier this year. The prestigious accolade highlights 291 Colorado Whiskey’s pioneering spirit, innovation and dedication to the craft.
As he wanted to add a Kentucky twist to this latest pair of Experimental Batches, the question begs: what exactly is ‘Colorado’ whiskey? “For me, Colorado whiskey is what I set out to make: a whiskey that’s big, bold, and beautiful, like the state of Colorado,” Myers explains. “The west is rugged—there’s some refinement to it, but it’s rebellious.
“I wanted a whiskey that was Western: You’re watching a movie and a dude comes into a saloon, and you want to do that shot or drink it deep. And it’s a little harsh because it just came off a dusty road and you’re just like, ‘Damn, that’s really good.’”
When asked to describe how a whiskey can be rugged and rebellious, Myers continues the wild west metaphor.
“A lot of the big ranches were really rugged and really hard, but then inside the home is beautiful, and there’s a classic-ness to it,” he elaborates. “So that’s what I like about Colorado is that yin-and-yang, dichotomy, contrast.”
For the rebellious factor, Myers notes not only the fact that the Centennial State was not a traditional whiskey-making area—at least not when he founded 291 in 2011—but also the fact that he prefers to bottle his brown at close to still strength.
“I want it to be high proof,” he adds. “You can always do what we do in the distillery to lower the proof, cut it with a little water, but why not enjoy that moment by putting it in there yourself?” he asks rhetorically. “It opens up—all of a sudden you proof it and all the flavors are coming out. But you get to experience that at your table or in your chair at night, so that’s why I just think it’s a pure form at that point.”
Experimental Batch #14 (Rye) and Experimental Batch #15 (Bourbon) are bottled in 291’s signature Old West saloon-style glass with cork stopper. Unsurprisingly, the ruggedness was assured with their 67% and 64.6% ABV respectively. The latest in the E lines are powerful enough for an OK Corral gunfight, but smooth and caramel-bodied like only the finest American whiskeys achieve. $108
Follow Deputy Editor Nicolas Stecher on Instagram at @nickstecher and @boozeoftheday.
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