Colorado Craft Whiskey Collaboration Project Continues For Second Year

Collaboration among distilleries, particularly in the craft world, is surprisingly common, especially in the background as day to day operations go on. It’s not uncommon to see several whiskey making outfits come together to create a whiskey that blends spirit from each of them, as we saw last year with four Colorado distilleries. This undertaking, known as the Colorado Whiskey Collaboration Project, is now back for a second year.

The Colorado Whiskey Collaboration Project, according to those behind it, has expanded from four distilleries to seven. Whereas last year a rye expression was the focus, what you have for 2018 is a wheat whiskey offering. This single barrel, 120-proof wheat whiskey contains equal parts of spirit from 291 Colorado Distillery, Bear Creek Distillery, Laws Whiskey House, Old Elk Distillery, State 38 Distilling, Woody Creek Distillers, and Wood’s High Mountain Distillery.

Plans call for this expression to be aged a minimum of two years at Laws Whiskey House in order for it to gain a straight whiskey designation. When it is bottled the batch will be donated to local charities – one chosen by each distiller –  to be auctioned off at their fundraising events.

“We wanted to do something fun together to raise money for local charities, while also spreading the awareness of the local Colorado craft-distilling community,” said Sean Smiley, owner of State 38 Distilling and president of the Colorado Distillers Guild, in a prepared statement. “The Colorado community has such a strong interest in craft distilling and buying local products, that we think this incredibly unique whiskey will raise a substantial amount of money for charity.”

This new wheat whiskey follows upon the collaborative rye whiskey from last year. The latter is expected to be released next year, and it is planned that a new collaborative barrel will be crafted each year.