A firefighter, a brewer and a shared taste for whiskey.

Stranahan’s began with a fire. In 1998, The Whiskey Wash and VinePair recount, the volunteer firefighter Jess Graber was called to a burning barn at Woody Creek, near Aspen, owned by George Stranahan, a physicist and the founder of Flying Dog Brewery. The barn was lost, but the two men found a shared interest in whiskey and began experimenting with making their own. English Wikipedia, citing Westword and 5280 magazine from 2011, tells the same story.

They set up in Denver, in a space next to Flying Dog, and distilled their first batch in 2004, VinePair reports; the first bottles went on sale two years later, in 2006. English Wikipedia, citing Whisky Advocate in 2010, says the young distillery at first used wash brewed by Flying Dog and began making its own after moving to a larger site in 2009. The whiskey was named after Stranahan, the partner whose barn had burned.

The founders did not keep it long. In 2010 the business was sold to Proximo Spirits, with production staying in Colorado, English Wikipedia says, citing Westword of 28 December 2010. Proximo, founded in 2007 by the Beckmann family, is part of the group behind José Cuervo; Just Drinks called it Cuervo’s Proximo Spirits division in 2022. The distillery remains in Denver, and its head distillers have changed over the years: English Wikipedia lists Jake Norris as the founding head distiller, followed by Rob Dietrich and then Owen Martin, who left in late 2022, with Justin Aden named head blender in 2023.

A yellow sash, a steel cap and a signature on every label.

The best-known part of the bottle is the sash: a band across the label that VinePair calls a quiet bar-top signal for those in the know. The Denver studio The Made Shop says on its own site that over several years it reworked the brand’s visual identity, packaging, merchandise and marketing, helped redesign the distillery tour, produced a coffee-table book and oversaw the design and release of two newer whiskeys, Diamond Peak and Snowflake.

The cap is the second signature. VinePair explains that it nods to the Old West barroom habit of covering an open bottle with a small tin cup: each Stranahan’s bottle carries a stainless-steel cover over its cork, embossed underneath with the letters SCW and marked inside with measures so that it doubles as a jigger. English Wikipedia, citing Drink Spirits in 2011, describes the same cup.

The third is the hand. Labels have been handwritten and applied by volunteers at weekend bottling sessions since the whiskey first launched, VinePair reports, with a crew chosen at random from a waiting list of Denver locals. English Wikipedia, citing Drink Spirits, says each label is signed by the distiller and has sometimes noted the music played while the batch was made. The whiskey itself is made from 100% malted barley, English Wikipedia says, which places it in the American single malt category that the US government formally recognised in January 2025, Whisky Advocate reported. English Wikipedia, citing Drink Spirits and Outside, adds that the barley includes four Colorado-grown varieties and that the water comes from a spring outside Boulder, and VinePair notes that the brand belongs to the American Single Malt Whiskey Commission, a group that promotes the category.

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this group are all American craft distillers: Koval, FEW, Westward, Stranahan’s, Garrison Brothers, Kings County and Copperworks. They sit at different points in the trade, from founder-run distilleries to names that have passed to larger drinks groups, and they make different styles of whiskey, from bourbon and rye to single malt.

One category in particular has been defined only recently. In December 2024 the US Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) announced a standard of identity for “American single malt whisky,” effective on 19 January 2025, in response to petitions from several distillers and the American Single Malt Whisky Commission. Under the rule, such a whisky must be mashed, distilled and aged in the United States; distilled entirely at one US distillery, to 160 proof or less, from a fermented mash of 100 percent malted barley; stored in oak barrels of no more than 700 litres; and bottled at not less than 80 proof, the TTB says. The word “straight” may be added for whisky aged at least two years, and labels have a five-year transition period. VinePair reported in 2019 that the commission’s founding members, when it formed in 2016, included Copperworks, FEW Spirits and House Spirits Distillery, listed with its Westward single malt.

A craft whiskey’s identity is usually carried by a label, a name and the place it promises, because the company behind it may have changed hands or grown beyond where it started. Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its spirits are made and how its bottles and labels have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A Denver distillery with roots in the mountains.

The range has grown from a single whiskey. Alongside the original single malt, English Wikipedia lists Blue Peak, the Mountain Angel age-stated releases, a Sherry Cask whiskey first released in 2017, Diamond Peak, single-barrel bottlings and Snowflake, a distillery exclusive that people queue for. Proximo has also used its sister brands’ casks: in May 2022 Just Drinks reported a distillery-exclusive Añejo Cask single malt finished in barrels that had held José Cuervo añejo tequila.

The brand has also gone back to the mountains where its story began. The Whiskey Wash reported on 22 February 2024 that Stranahan’s would open a Whiskey Lodge in Aspen on 9 March 2024, with a bar, a restaurant and whiskeys sold only there. In July 2026 Proximo launched a campaign around “Colorado 150: The Pioneers,” a list of people who shaped the state, to mark Colorado’s 150th anniversary, Global Drinks Intel reported, with a film, outdoor advertising and an event at the Denver distillery.

The name needs a little care online. Stranahan’s is a family name, and the brand’s own site is stranahans.com.

For a design guide, Stranahan’s shows how a yellow sash, a steel cup over the cork and a hand-signed label have stayed with a whiskey from its start beside a Denver brewery through its sale to a much larger drinks group. Compare High West, the Park City whiskey house, and Westward, the Portland single malt. For this guide we use sash yellow, barrel brown and label black with a Western serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Stranahan’s’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.