When Jake Norris looks at the current state of American whiskey culture, where people prioritize collecting over consuming, it bums him out — even if he had a hand in shaping it.
Norris is a longtime Denver resident and professional distiller who spent more than a decade crafting highly coveted whiskies at Stranahan’s and Laws Whiskey House. He helped popularize one-off, specialty batch releases locally through the launch of Stanahan’s Snowflake program, which sees drinkers line up for days ahead of a release in hopes they can buy one of the rare bottles.
Whiskey enthusiasts today know that the more rare the release, the more money it could fetch on the secondary market. Sought-after whiskies like Pappy Van Winkle and Yamazaki 18, for example, can sell for many times their retail value — if they remain unopened.
But Norris contends that treating whiskey like collector’s items is missing the point.
“What good is a record if you don’t play it? What good is a painting if there’s a tarp on it?” he said. “(Whiskey) is not a skull thatap supposed to sit on a shelf in a museum. Itap a magic elixir that can deepen conversation and make a good night great.”
With his new venture, , Norris hopes to inspire people to stop hoarding and start drinking. Over the next couple years, he plans to release eight different whiskey expressions made by barrel-aging one of his original bourbon recipes in a variety of casks to invoke different flavor profiles. Though each will be a one-time offering, Norris is incentivizing drinkers to break the seal by hosting chef-driven pop-up dinners to celebrate each release and selling bottles with an accompanying zine.
The first, called The Control, debuted this month and, as the name suggests, it will be the only expression that is not cask-finished. That way, people can get a taste of the unadulterated baseline recipe, which features a mash bill of 75% corn, 21% rye and 4% malted barley. The whiskey was aged for seven years in new oak barrels and about 400 bottles are available, Norris said.
The Curated Barrel Project initially came together around 2024, when Norris found himself sitting on 30 barrels of well-aged whiskey. He originally contracted Southern Distilling Co. in North Carolina to distill the spirit in 2019, when he was working as an industry consultant, with the intention of selling it to a future client.
U.S. law requires “straight bourbon” to be aged for at least two years. As Norris’ spirit was approaching the maturation deadline, the pandemic hit.
“We just put a pin in it. I looked up three years later and now I have five-and-a-half-year-old whiskey,” he said. “I ordered samples of it, it was really good. Selfishly, I didn’t want to get rid of the barrels.”
Future releases will see the whiskey aged in Cognac barrels, Port wine barrels and other spirit casks.
In addition to launching The Curated Barrel Project, Norris is working to open a yet-to-be-named distillery in Arvada. It is technically a separate endeavor from the bottle releases, but will specialize in making — you guessed it — whiskey. Construction is finishing up on the space at 5525 W. 56th St., #400, Norris said, and he intends to sell The Curated Barrel Projectap products while spirits for the forthcoming distillery are aging.
Folks who attend The Curated Barrel Projectap upcoming whiskey pairing pop-up dinner will get to preview the new distillery, where the event will be hosted. On May 28, Norris is welcoming former “Top Chef” contestant chef Manny Barella, co-owner of Riot BBQ and Chicken Riot, to serve a four-course menu and only 50 tickets will be available. In a somewhat uncanny move, attendees will be asked to bring their own plates and flatware.
“I think itap a really cool opportunity for people to bring a piece of themselves into that event… I think that fosters a connection,” he said. (Dishes will be washed prior to departure from the event, he added.)
Between that and the zine — which includes a QR code to a custom playlist and artwork done by Norris himself — The Curated Barrel Project attempts to disconnect whiskey enthusiasts from the internet and reconnect them to a good old-fashioned sensory experience.
“I have very fond memories of going out and buying a new record, bringing it home, carefully unwrapping it, reading the jacket, and putting the record on the first time, and just being completely immersed in a moment,” Norris said. “I thought, why can’t whiskey be like that?”
The Curated Barrel Projectap first batch release, The Control ($99), is now on sale, as are tickets to the pop-up dinner with chef Manny Barella on May 28 ($250 per person). The company is also offering memberships ($800) to those who want to be guaranteed a bottle from all eight batches, plus a special bonus bottle that won’t be available for purchase to the general public. For more information, visit .
