Spirit Hound

In 2011, after having struck gold with one of his home-brewed beer recipes (Dale’s Pale Ale, christened at Oskar Blues in Longmont, Colorado), Craig began dreaming up new creations, this time with a higher proof.

As it turned out, other like-minded, spirit-loving friends in the town of Lyons, Colorado had similar aspirations. They formed a scrappy pack and caught a whiff of opportunity in the form of an old motorcycle repair shop that had just gone up for sale.

The small-town Colorado shop soon transformed into a distillery. The pack of friends formed Spirit Hound Distillers and began creating exceptional gins, vodkas, and other clear liquors while waiting for their first run of single malt whisky to age.

Conveniently, Craig had just put the finishing touches on the distillery’s iconic all-copper pot still, a marvel of craftsmanship that took over 500 hours to complete.

Rocky Mountain snowmelt water was paired with locally sourced botanicals like wild Juniper berries hand-picked in their surrounding river basin and raw honey sourced from our neighboring apiary.

It wouldn’t be long before word would spread about the little distillery making big waves throughout Colorado, the surrounding region and internationally. Spirit Hound had earned a reputation for hand-crafting everything, from the spirits themselves to the very labels and bottles used to identify and preserve them.