Newly renamed Turnbuckle Distilling is breaking ground on a $6 million facility off C-470 in Jefferson County this month, four years after the pandemic and two years after submitting final plans.
“This has always been the plan,” said Barrett Rothe, the distillery’s chief operations officer. “We were on the hunt for land and got everything almost ready when the pandemic hit. And finally after nine months of site-development work with Jefferson County, we’re ready to break ground.”
The 15,000-square-foot facility will sit on 5 acres just off Bowles Avenue, which has a Littleton address but is in an unincorporated part of the county. It will house production and barreling space, a tasting room and a restaurant, as well as event space.
“We want the silo to be part tasting room and part neighborhood bar,” Rothe said. “And the location will give it this picturesque view of the Denver metro.”
Sandy, Rothe’s father, traveled for his job at Deloitte and fell in love with Napa. As he contemplated retiring from his 45-year-career at Deloitte’s Denver office, he wanted to bring a little of the Napa experience to Colorado, but with whiskey.
The opportunity presented itself in spring 2018 to buy Westminster’s Whistling Hare Distillery and its licenses.
The Rothe family always planned to rebrand the company and build their own facility, Barrett Rothe said. They bought the undeveloped Jefferson County site for $765,000 in 2021. The new moniker refers to a hope that, like the tool it is named for, the distillery will bring together family and community.
“The vision is for this to be a family business,” said Rothe, who worked in health care project management before joining the company. “I like Sierra Nevada Brewing Company’s slogan — it’s family owned and argued over. That’s us too.”
Turnbuckle Distilling currently offers “estate ownership,” which gives a deeded plat of distillery land, a personalized brick on the exterior plaza and exclusive offerings such as events and bottles, and a barrel share program where patrons and their friends can purchase a barrel with individualized branding and labels.
But the company will offer a more formal membership program in conjunction with the new facility. About six months after opening, Rothe said, Turnbuckle hopes to start a club offering specialty bottles, access to new products, access to a members-only bar or lounge area and locker storage. Rothe also said they hope to start something similar to wine-of-the-month memberships, in which Turnbuckle will send members specialty bottles or its newest products every few months.
Rothe said Turnbuckle’s current distillery and tasting room is staying open, but they ultimately hope to sell it and its licenses. The new facility, he said, will hopefully open in 2025.
“We’re really excited,” Rothe said. “We want it open in a year, less if we can, but everything’s taken a little longer than expected.”
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