Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2018 i 5280 Magazine

Each year, typically in February, our editorial staff heads to the mountains for an overnight retreat during which we hit the slopes, scream down a tubing hill, and cook and drink together in rustic cabins. I have fantastic memories of knee-deep powder in Vail’s back bowls, but my favorite part of the trip is always the dinner we make together. I’m not much of a chef, so a few years ago I volunteered to make margaritas after finding an easy recipe. Turns out, the 5280 crew really likes margaritas, and I really like mixing drinks. There’s something tremendously satisfying about selecting the right components and blending them together in a way that makes someone else happy. ¶ I was reminded of my annual role as barkeep while reading Denise Mickelsen…

Which entries at the Boulder International Film Festival (February 22 to 25) could become Oscar favorites. Space suds. In December, Budweiser sent Fort Collins barley to the International Space Station. Who will win the Daytona 500 (February 18). Our bet: Martin Truex Jr., car number 78, of Denver’s Furniture Row Racing team. The new head of Chipotle. At press time, the Denver-born chain was still searching for a CEO.…

1 COLLABORATION PRODUCTS Centennial State brewers cite the cooperative nature of our artisan beer scene, and that same spirit extends to, well, spirits. Wood’s High Mountain Distillery crafts the grape spirit that goes into Vino Salida’s award-winning red vermouth, for example, while Leopold Bros.’ spent barrels go to New Belgium Brewing Company, Upslope Brewing Company, and Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project for aging their specialty brews. 2 LOCAL GRAINS With distillers increasingly sourcing local grains, Colorado farmers are seeing the benefits. “The craft distilling industry has been our biggest by-volume customer, by far,” says Jason Cody of Alamosa’s Colorado Malting Company, a fourth-generation farm and malt house. 3 ESOTERIC LIQUEURS & SPIRITS Forget whiskey and vodka—more obscure liqueurs and spirits are finding their ways onto consumers’ bar carts. Take Boulder’s…

LABEL SAYS: Woody Creek Distillers WHICH MEANS: The brand name of the distillery that bottled the whiskey. The address must also appear, but it can be the location of the distillery or its primary place of business (read: an office or tasting room). LABEL SAYS: 100% Rye Mash WHICH MEANS: The whiskey in that bottle was distilled from a “fermented mash bill,” or grain mixture, entirely made up of rye (only 51 percent is required to call a spirit “rye”); bourbon comes from a mash bill of at least 51 percent corn. LABEL SAYS : Aged A Minimum Of Two Years WHICH MEANS: That whiskey has spent at least two years in an oak barrel. Although often regarded as a sign of excellence, “age isn’t an indicator of quality, but…

Adecade ago, if you asked for a local craft gin your bartender might have looked at you as if you’d requested a maraschino cherry in your dirty martini. Today, however, the (usually) juniper-forward spirit* has become the liquor du jour, leaving gin drinkers with a new problem: parsing all the Centennial State iterations, with their unconventional styles and endless botanical combinations. To help you decide which bottles to choose, we asked the buyers at Argonaut Wine & Liquor—who’ve seen a steady rise in gin sales over the past few years—to select a lineup of Colorado-made gins, 16 in total, for a blind tasting with three local bartenders. Here’s what went down. THE JUDGES Nancy Kwon Currently the bar manager and spirits curator at Boulder’s Emmerson Restaurant, Kwon was named best…

TRAIL WALKING If you’re a beginner or heading out on wellmaintained trails (like the 1.4-mile round-trip hike to a former gold mine at Snow Mountain Ranch), these entry-level snowshoes with easy-to-buckle bindings are your best bet. DAYHIKING Once you add elevation gain and rolling terrain to your jaunts, heavier-duty bindings and crampons will help you push through untouched powder on, say, the Waterdog Lakes Trail near Salida—an approximately three-mile route that starts at just higher than 10,300 feet. BACKCOUNTRY EXPLORING On long, steep hikes like the ones you’ll find on Pearl Pass—which stretches 25 miles from the Ashcroft ghost town to Crested Butte (routes can vary)—snowshoes with a heel lift relieve the strain on your calves and provide more traction on uneven ground. SNOWSHOE RUNNING These ultra-lightweight shoes are ideal…

INTUITIVE SHAPE All of Crescent Moon’s frames are shaped like teardrops, a tapered silhouette that allows users to employ a normal gait instead of having to take a wider stance to keep the shoes from bumping into each other. QUIET DECKING Many snowshoe companies turn to molded plastics for their decking—the material that stretches across the frame, creating the base of the snowshoe—but Crescent Moon has instead created a proprietary material called TGS, an acronym for “the good stuff.” The blend of synthetic rubber and polyester is strong (it’s tear-and crack-resistant to minus 40 degrees), soft, and most important, quiet. “When you’re out snowshoeing, you ought to be able to listen to the silence of the forest,” Thamm says. “Instead what you hear [with plastic decking] is the sound of…

NEAR: Georgetown DISTANCE: 6.5 miles one way (turn around at Ridge Summit 3.7 miles in for an easier trek, or arrange for someone to pick you up at the Hall Valley/Burning Bear West trailhead at the end of the path) ELEVATION GAIN: 1,170 feet if you start at the Burning Bear East trailhead; 1,183 if you start at Hall Valley COST: Free TREKKING POLES NEEDED? Yes, particularly near the Ridge Summit I’ve been on Guanella Pass for 10 minutes, and I’m already lost. Or rather, I’m confused about where I’m supposed to go. A friend and I successfully found the parking area for the Abyss Lake and Burning Bear trailheads on a flat portion of Guanella Pass Road. But where Burning Bear Trail might actually be located is a mystery.…

SPORTS & RECREATION FEB. 11 Old Man Winter Rally Snowy trails and freezing temperatures might deter your average athlete from running and biking multiple miles in the cold. Yet hardy Coloradans have yet to shy away from Old Man Winter’s challenge: a 5.4-mile run or a 50-to 100-kilometer bike ride near Sandstone Park. Participants can join their cheer squads at the finish line for a hot meal and Oskar Blues Brewery beer. Sun 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Sandstone Park, 350 Broadway St., Lyons. $50-$100. Visit oldmanwinterrally.com. FEB. 16–18 Colorado Pond Hockey Tournament You’ll swear you’re in Canada instead of Colorado during this weekend devoted to pond hockey and beer. Teams of all skill levels are invited to take to the ice (costumes encouraged) for at least four games of pool play.…

PAUL MILLER Photographer Colorado distilleries tend to be located in dark, moody spaces, which makes them conducive for crafting booze—but not for being photographed. Denver lensman Paul Miller found that out the hard way when he shot “High Spirits” (page 58), this issue’s comprehensive look at the Centennial State’s liquor scene. “It was tough to find locations that had an interesting enough background, without being too dark and cavelike,” he says. That’s why the story features plenty of close-up, detailcentric images rather than a bevy of wideangle shots showing shadowy barrel rooms. Miller’s work has also been featured in Yoga Journal. KELLY BASTONE Writer Before she went shooting with Paul Vahldiek, founder of the conservation science nonprofit High Lonesome Institute (“A Modest Proposal,” page 78), on his massive ranch in…

Growing up in the Navajo Nation near the Four Corners region, Len Necefer climbed the Chuska Mountains in Arizona and New Mexico alongside plenty of other Native Americans. But when he moved to Colorado in 2016, he saw fewer faces like his on routes or hikes—and virtually none in the glossy backcountry photos that clogged his social media feeds. So the then 29-year-old launched the Instagram account @NativesOutdoors, both to highlight Indian adventurers and to alert the outdoor recreation industry of its image problem. In the process, Necefer acquired a few other high-profile followers: The Colorado Outdoor Recreation Industry Office recently tapped him to become part of its advisory group, and starting this month he’ll work with state agencies to gather input from American Indian populations across Colorado about the…

Three creative couples redefine “office romance.” PAGE 28 READING LIPS If a book club doesn’t involve any reading, is it still a book club? Author Sharon Glassman would argue yes. In 2013, the Longmont resident created the Lazy Person’s Book Club, in which she and a few local musicians and actors performed a chapter of her quirky romance audio book, Blame It On Hoboken (there is no print version). “We weren’t reading the book word for word,” Glassman says. “It was more like an old-time radio play”—original songs included. This past fall, she launched another way to experience her novel: the Book Club Wine. Anyone who purchases a bottle of Snowy Peaks Winery’s Oso Rosé—$21 at the Estes Park tasting room or on Snowy Peaks’ website—can scan a QR code…

Chef Biju Thomas, the creative force behind the wildly flavorful South Indian–inspired cuisine at fast-casual Biju’s Little Curry Shop, has embarked upon his second act—this time as a retail maven—with the late-2017 launch of Biju’s Kerala Spices, which add heady fragrance and fiery flavor to everything they touch. Thomas packaged the line—including a chile lime finishing salt, a toasty garam masala, and an aromatic turmeric from his native Kerala—in wide-mouth metal cans (no tiny shaker holes!) to encourage home cooks to use them with abandon, as he does. Not a spice pro? No problem. Thomas’ collection of heat-and-serve simmer sauces (think: coconut curry, red curry, vindaloo, or tikka masala) and ready-to-eat snacks (toasted chickpeas and potato chips) will hit area Whole Foods Market shelves in early 2018. littlecurryshop.com ON THE…

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I spent my teenage years in Atlanta, so I’m familiar with the humidity, hospitality, and formality of the South. From the age of 13, I was taught that all sentences should end in “ma’am” or “sir”; that despite 100-degree heat and 99 percent humidity, women “glisten” instead of sweat; and that every self-respecting Southerner drinks her liquor brown. It was that final lesson that refused to take. Even as I tried not to perspire in the sweltering temps at University of Georgia football games as an undergrad, I couldn’t choke down the Jack Daniels offered to me by those who’d snuck it inside the stadium and mixed it with Coke. After years of declining (“No, thank you, sir”) to drink the nectar of Dixie, I migrated to Colorado—the promised land…

NEAR: Telluride DISTANCE: 3.6 miles round trip ELEVATION GAIN: 1,023 feet COST: Free TREKKING POLES NEEDED? Yes, definitely When my warm-blooded Texan family visited Telluride in January 2016, they did the things powder virgins do when encountering real snow for the first time: sledding, skiing, and hurling snowballs at one another. But when I suggested Ridge Trail (a path with more than 1,000 feet of elevation gain), everyone demurred—except my brother, an ultrarunner whose idea of a vacation is logging 100 miles around the base of Mt. Rainier. At the Telluride Adventure Center, where we stopped to ask for directions, the attendant warned us we might want to ride the gondola up to Station St. Sophia and simply hike the descent. She didn’t realize she was talking to highly competitive…

Five organizations that are putting Colorado on the map of global do-goodery. PAGE 22 PLAY MAKER When the 2018 Winter Olympics begin on February 9, several Colorado athletes should be among those seeking gold and glory in Pyeongchang, South Korea. We say “should” because late-January qualifying events and last-minute injuries mean Team USA’s roster isn’t set until a couple of weeks before the games begin. One Coloradan has had his place secured for months, though: Olympic chief ice master and Colorado Springs resident Don Moffatt. Moffatt—a Zamboni driver for the Colorado Avalanche, former NHL referee, and ice technician for two previous Winter Olympic Games—understands the finer points of hockey ice maintenance better than most. He knows the 200-by-100-foot sheet (15 feet wider than an NHL rink) needs to maintain a…

At Señor Bear, executive chef Blake Edmunds creates bold Pan-Latin mashups. PAGE 36 FIT FOR A KING Forget the lovefest associated with this month’s most notorious (and exclusionary) holiday. There’s a better way to celebrate: Channel the Mardi Gras spirit with Moxie Bread Co.’s king cake. The Louisville bakery’s owner, Andy Clark, was undeterred by the fact that Carnival season (which began with Epiphany on January 6) isn’t widely celebrated here when he put a version of the sweet staple on Moxie’s menu for the first time in 2017. Rather than producing the doughy, multicolored, sugar-crusted classic—the pastry equivalent of mass-market Mardi Gras beads—Clark took a sophisticated, French-inspired approach. The result, available through Fat Tuesday (February 13 this year) for $25, is a massive “kouign-amann” (a flaky pastry even more…

It’s been ages since I was as surprised by a Denver restaurant as I was recently by Señor Bear. Chalk up my low expectations to its Latin-fusion theme, which can lure lesser kitchens into a culinary uncanny valley—not quite here, not quite anywhere. But partners Juan Padro, Katie O’Shea Padro, Max Mackissock, Kevin Eddy, and Blake Edmunds, the folks behind Señor Bear and Bar Dough (who appear to have a weakness for silly restaurant names), possess a good compass and know where they’re bound. In the case of Bar Dough, they created a shiny, spirited LoHi restaurant that, at its best, dances past generic Italian fare to achieve real urban brio, in vibe and flavors. Señor Bear, in the space at the corner of 33rd and Tejon streets that was…

If you drink liquor and live in Colorado, the overloaded shelves at your local bottle shop probably give you all the happy feels: On average, a new craft distillery opens every day in the United States, and in Colorado, the distillery count has more than doubled over the past four years. The factors behind the local boom range from our state’s benevolent approach to spirits circulation (distillers can self-distribute here) to the ever-louder collective voices of industry groups, including the national American Crafts Spirits Association (ACSA) and, locally, the Colorado Distillers Guild (CDG). That momentum is trickling down to Centennial State drinkers in the form of an abundance of hyperlocal liquors (and liqueurs!), sophisticated tasting rooms, and innovative tours. And just when we thought things couldn’t get any more delicious,…

Local(ish) Accessories 1. Marble Distilling Co. Vodka 80 $30, Carbondale One of a handful of distilleries in the country working toward a zero-waste process, Marble recaptures 100 percent of the water it uses in the distilling process and reuses energy created during the distillation of its smooth, clean Vodka 80, made from Colorado grains. 2. Old Town Distilling Co. Old Standard Bourbon Whiskey $60, Fort Collins This three-year-old distillery adheres to organic and sustainable practices, filtering chlorine and fluoride out of its water and sending spent grains to local ranches as feed for hogs and cattle. 3. Longtucky Spirits Silver Sour-Mashed Rum $30, Longmont What happens when you turn three former Avery Brewing employees loose with bushels of Fort Morgan sugar beets? Longtucky Spirits’ sour-mashed rum, made from 75 percent…

NEAR: Fort Collins DISTANCE: 10 to 13 miles round trip ELEVATION GAIN: 200 feet COST: $3 daily state parks fee for users 16 and older (bring cash) TREKKING POLES NEEDED? Nope Not a single cloud dots the sky when I park at the top of Cameron Pass, just east of State Forest State Park. After an hour and a half of 30-mile-per-hour turns through scenic Poudre Canyon, I’m eager to stretch my legs on the long, flat Michigan Ditch Trail. More of a dirt road than a true trail, Michigan Ditch runs alongside a trench that ferries water to the city of Fort Collins. That means utility trucks and other vehicles tamp down any snow that falls here, creating a level layer ideal for an easy snowshoe stroll. Before crossing…