Eagle River Whisky purchases empty lot on Main Street in Minturn and has big plans
Eagle River Whisky/Courtesy photo
Eagle River Whisky may have just opened on the banks of the Eagle River in Minturn earlier this year but the owners already have their eyes set on expanding.
Stefanie and Spence Neubauer welcomed whisky enthusiasts to their tasting room just north of downtown Minturn in the Meadow Mountain Business Center this summer. They also had a booth – complete with a secret speakeasy door that led you into a back room for tastings – at the Minturn Market, but they knew they wanted to grow.
The tasting room, which was cleverly decorated by Stefanie to mimic the look and feel of a Scottish distillery, was a cozy place to try a dram of their products, but, the Neubauers soon found it was a little too cozy, as in small.
“We quickly realized that it would be too costly to retrofit it to become the state-of-the-art, sustainable distillery we have always dreamed of. So, we thought it would be wiser to pivot before we put a lot of money into the current location,” Stefanie Neubauer said.
The couple wanted to keep the business in Minturn proper since they live there, raise their children there and feel at home there.
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“In Scottish tradition, we have named our whiskies after the area they come from, so our whiskies are named for the geography of this very special area. Dowds is the blend of two rivers and two whiskies, Gilman is named for the old ghost town perched along the route to Leadville and of course we have a whisky named Minturn,” she said.
When the Neubauers learned that there was an empty lot available on Main Street, they knew they had to go for it. The lot was where the Mountain Pedaler Bike Shop was once housed.
“That building had so much character and charm and was really a town favorite. When it was demolished in 2019, a lot of locals, us included, hoped something fun or interesting would take its place,” she said.
The lot remained empty for years and this was appealing to the Neubauers because it was a blank canvas.
“We can build our new distillery from the ground up with sustainability in mind at every turn – from the drains to the plumbing and electrical layouts. But we also plan to honor the memory of the older building. We don’t have any formal plans yet, just our daydream of what we want the new building to look like,” she said.
The design they’ve sketched out actually draws a lot of inspiration from the old Mountain Pedaler building. The windows flank the centered door, the top tower juts out, the lines around their mayfly logo are above the door and they even hope to bring back the flower boxes.
On the side of the building, they hope to have a very small and discrete laundromat. A laundromat, you ask. Yes, a working laundromat, but it actually has a strong nod to Minturn’s heritage.
This is a nod to the bootlegger history of Minturn. Hank Elliot was a prominent local who ran a dairy operation and could discreetly deliver milk and “other beverages” to his customers during prohibition. Hank’s whiskey still is actually at the Eagle Country Historical Museum in Eagle.
Hank’s Bootlegger Laundry will open into the tasting room via a secret speakeasy door. You’ll just need to pull on the box of detergent on the shelf to trigger the lock. Who knows, doing laundry could actually become a fun, social event in Minturn.
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All fun aside, the Neubauers realize that it is important to have people who care about Minturn’s future building anew and preserving the character of downtown.
“For a long time now, the Minturn downtown area has been almost wholly owned by absentee landlords. But that’s beginning to change as local businesses have started to buy the buildings they’re in. The Minturn Saloon, Alpine Kind and Sunrise Minturn all have local owners who really care about the community and are committed to making Minturn a successful tourist destination,” she said. “Now, we will be the next business to be owned and cared for by people who live here and who have an interest in this very special town’s character.”
The day the Neubauers took over ownership of the lot happened to be the 90th anniversary of Prohibition being repealed, which was Dec. 5, 1933.
“We thought it was serendipity that our closing date fell on Dec. 5th, the 90th anniversary of the end of Prohibition. What whisky company doesn’t celebrate Repeal Day?”
“As the founder of Suntory Whisky once said, ‘Whisky is an elixir that would bring people closer together and kindle happiness in their hearts,'” she said. “We want to do the same thing here in Minturn, but unlike Hank Elliot, we have the luxury to do it legally.”
