From January of 2018 to December of 2019, we gained distribution in the other 48. At the end of 2017, we were only in two states: Colorado and California. Up until February 2020, I was all over the country with my boss Luis Gonzalez, gaining distribution in every state. I assume you were going back and forth to Fort Collins before the pandemic? It doesn’t matter so much where it was made. At the end of the day, that’s what matters. And we did it by producing world-class whiskey. I think we did a lot of work to really dispel those myths, if you will.
Do you think the world has finally moved past that whole “bourbon has to come from Kentucky” mentality? You’re a Cincinnati resident who has produced whiskey made in Indiana and now you’re doing the same for a distillery in Colorado. We talked to him about Old Elk’s most recent releases, pushing booze during a pandemic, and what he drinks to unwind. It’s a completely different experience for Metze: getting in on the ground floor of an upstart company, spending time on such things as sales and marketing instead of being tied down to the factory floor, and…oh yeah, actually being able to say, “I made this whiskey,” although he isn’t really one to brag.
OLD ELK BOURBON DELIVERY FULL
By the time Old Elk-a Fort Collins, Colorado, distillery owned by Curt and Nancy Richardson of the phone-case company Otterbox-released its Blended Straight Bourbon Whiskey in 2017, the 65-year-old Elder and University of Cincinnati grad had joined the company full time (while still living in Milford). When Greg Metze left the MGP of Indiana in Lawrenceburg after 38 years, 14 of them as master distiller, he had a consulting gig lined up for what looked to be like a continuation of his old job: quietly making excellent whiskey for other people.
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