Whereas some people eschew offseason in resort towns, those who have taken advantage of the shoulder season know firsthand the beauty. The pace is low-key, the locals are relaxed and cheerful, and hotel rates are reasonable. Plus, there’s no waiting for tables at restaurants (a godsend when you have young kids), and the trails are nearly empty and sublimely peaceful. And so it went during a recent mid-October visit to Crested Butte.
Read MoreNew York City—more specifically the neon insanity around Times Square—may be the most popular tourist destination in the United States, but travelers don’t need to navigate the Big Apple to take home a memorable experience. America’s small towns have a lot to offer tourists, from lakeside picnics to golf with a view to carriage rides through cobbled streets.
Read MoreIt’s officially off season. While there may not be a much going on, there are some great specials on Food and Drink in the Crested Butte Off Season. Both the temperature and the number of people in town have noticeably dropped and the lifts won’t begin their test runs for weeks. Now is the perfect time to enjoy those shoulder season deals! Travel Crested Butte has put together a list of 4 Crested Butte Off Season Drinks and a Crested Butte Off Season Deals guide, plus I’ve added a few more to the list!
Read MoreWhen the Still on the Hill Breckenridge Craft Spirits Festival was created, the town’s local distillery was still in its infancy. With hopes of bringing more awareness to the craft spirits movement — as well bring more off-season business to the town — the festival was a way to shine a light on Breckenridge Distillery.
Read MoreThe weekend has come and gone, and with it the Fourth Annual DSTILL Showcase at the History Colorado Center. With a start time of 7 p.m. and over 40 craft distilleries to sample, it was no wonder Lyft was one of the event’s many sponsors.
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While Colorado has long been known as a craft beer hub, over the past several years, it’s become fertile ground for small-batch distilleries, too. “Colorado has jumped from something like 30 distilleries to more than 50,” says Chuck Sullivan. Sullivan launched Dstill four years ago with two of Colorado's earliest champions of craft distilling, Rob Masters, founder of Rob's Mountain Gin and former president of the Colorado Distillers Guild, and Moose Koons of Peach Street Distillers and Rocky Mountain Soda Co..
Read MoreBack in 2014, Crested Butte’s then-mayor Aaron Huckstep was very fortunate he didn’t spark a bloody, Arab Spring-like uprising among his citizenry — a Colorado Spring, if you will — after he and the town elders shamelessly whored out the city to Bud Light for $500,000.
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Rum is synonymous with the Caribbean, evoking visions of tropical beaches and island breezes. After all, the hot, sunny climate of spots like Jamaica, Guatemala and Cuba is as perfect for growing the sugar cane required for making rum as it is for sipping a mojito.
But while the Caribbean is undoubtedly an ideal location for producing rum, it’s not the only region to consider when searching for a quality bottle. For something different, consider starting right here in the USA. America has been producing rum since colonial times, though the spirit has been often overshadowed by spirits like whiskey and gin.
In a state full of great destinations for outdoor adventure, Crested Butte, Colorado still manages to stand out. This small mountain town may only be home to 1500 residents, but it has a lot to offer travelers looking for an active escape. And surprisingly, it has plenty of great restaurants and night spots for when you're ready to unwind at the end of a busy day.
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Although Prohibition put a damper on America’s ability to drink in the 1920s and 1930s, the recent emergence of craft distilleries has put drinking spirits back on the map. We searched high and low to find the coolest distilleries across the country to sip top-notch beverages. The distilleries on our list pride themselves on using organic and locally-sourced (when possible) ingredients to produce high-quality spirits ranging from classic whiskies to off-the-wall flavoured vodkas. Each can be savoured in the form of a tasting flight or mixed into a craft cocktail. No matter what you order, there’s nothing like tasting spirits straight from their source.
Read MoreIt’s a freezing February morning in Crested Butte, Colorado and scribbled “Powder Day” signs are swinging from the windows of the Main St shops.
Here, in the place Australian skiers and snowboarders have dubbed the “Byron Bay of the USA”, everything stops for the snow.
Few bat an eyelid when the local bar or taco shop shuts to sample an overnight dump.
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For a week each July, New Orleans becomes the center of the booze universe as thousands of bartenders, distillers and enthusiasts (and your humble spirits columnist) descend upon the Big Easy for the annual Tales of the Cocktail conference. With its nonstop slate of seminars, pop-ups, cocktail dinners and parties, Tales is the best place to take the pulse of the cocktail world, and this year’s edition was no exception.
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During a trip to the annual cocktail convention Tales of the Cocktail, held each July in New Orleans, I learned a thing or two about cocktail trends: Tiki cocktails are big, classic cocktails are hot and hospitality is in, so don’t take any guff from that attitudinal “mixologist” when he asks if you want to pay extra for artisanal ice in your cocktail. The bartenders I spoke to at Tales were adamant that bartending needs to recapture the spirit of hospitality that has sometimes been lost as craft cocktail culture has ascended.
Read MoreRum is quickly becoming a hugely respected spirit category all over the world. With a resurgence of historic distilleries in the Caribbean and Central America, as well as a new crop of craft distillers in the United States, the sugar cane spirit is back. Lucky for most of us, it's still a relatively affordable category, so this list of the best rum under $40 is able to be fairly comprehensive.
We've included a variety of brands, from Jamaican mainstays like Appleton Estate to brand-new American rums like Montanya (distilled in Colorado) and Owney's (made in Brooklyn, New York). It's a truly global product, with each region, country, and city putting its own local spin on the recipe.
Read MoreToday, American rum is undergoing a resurgence, with distilleries focusing on high-quality ingredients and traditional techniques. 10Best enlisted the help of a panel of spirits experts to nominate the 20 best craft rum distilleries in the nation. Our readers have spent the last four weeks voting for their favorites, and the results are in.
Many of these distilleries work in small batches using locally-sourced ingredients. Many are family-owned. Many painstakingly distill their spirits using a blend of traditional and modern techniques. All take pride in crafting the best rums available.
Read MoreThe spirits explosion is undisputed. Thanks to global cocktail love and the nonstop growth of spirits collectors in every category, from whiskey to Cognac, distillers can’t keep up with demand. As the established brands devise and revise production plans, the rise of local, small batch distilleries continues to proliferate not just in the U.S., but globally. “Craft distilling” is officially mainstream.
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If rum were a friend of yours, it would be the fun one.
Unlike cognac, bourbon, scotch, and tequila, there are no universal regulations for the distillation or production of rum. This is awesome news for the adventurous drinker, who can enjoy the infinite creativity allowed by rum producers around the world. But it also means that being a savvy rum drinker requires a little more research, since there’s no one ensuring that what’s in the bottle is of the highest, uniform quality standard.
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When it comes to summertime sipping, there is nothing — and I mean nothing — better than a cocktail made with fresh ingredients. The Little Nell’s Mountain Mojito fits the bill perfectly. Poured with precision by Nell chief mixologist Ricardo Leyvas, this unique twist on the standard mojito blends together fresh lime juice and blood orange purée with agave (no simple syrup here) and fresh mint. The mint — plucked as the drinks are being poured right from The Little Nell’s lush onsite garden summer — is both muddled in the drink and served as a garnish. It is, to quote Leyvas, “what a summer drink should be.”
Read MoreCrested Butte is truly a mecca of mountain biking, and according to some it’s where it all began. The action dates back to the 1970's and it's been at the forefront of the sport ever since. Today Crested Butte remains atop every pedal head's bucket list. With hundreds of kilometres of trails - almost all accessible from town - there’s enough here to keep even the most avid mountain biker busy for weeks. Some of the more famous trails are the 401 Trail, Doctor Park, The Dyke, and Strand Hill.
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Making distilled spirits is an ancient process, and for 21st-century craft distillers--currently there are about 1,000 of them in the U.S., according to the American Distilling Institute--everything old is new again. And profitable. ADI's annual survey estimates that craft sales moved about 2.4 million cases in 2015, about 40 percent more than the previous year. From 2011 through 2015, segment revenue grew more than 40 percent annually.
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