Jake Norris was the founding head distiller of Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey and later of Laws Whiskey House. He joins Jake Lewellen on The Bourbon Lens to talk about the Curated Barrel Project, his direct-to-consumer, cask-finished bourbon series.
Jake Norris covers:
- How he went from Stranahan's and Laws to building his own Colorado distillery
- A hybrid still design: a continuous column stripper paired with a 4-plate pot column
- Why Colorado's altitude, microbiome, and locally grown grain shape the whiskey
- The Curated Barrel Project: eight quarterly releases of 7-year-old high-rye bourbon, including an unfinished control, an oloroso sherry cask finish, and a port cask finish still to come
- The vinyl-record idea behind each release: a handwritten zine, a Spotify playlist, and 50-person chef-driven warehouse dinners
- Why whiskey isn't dying, just repositioning, and why he is "anti-snobbery"
Learn more at thecuratedbarrelproject.com
⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Meet Jake Norris
1:17 From Stranahan's to Laws Whiskey House
3:16 Building his own distillery
5:24 Continuous column + pot column design
9:22 Colorado terroir, altitude & local grain
16:29 Watercolor, whiskey & learning your still
18:13 Origin of the Curated Barrel Project
24:26 The vinyl record idea, zines & playlists
29:16 The releases: control, oloroso & port
32:11 Membership & warehouse dinners
34:30 Whiskey's future & anti-snobbery
36:54 Where to find Curated Barrel Project
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#BourbonLens #JakeNorris #CuratedBarrelProject #ColoradoWhiskey #BourbonPodcast #WhiskeyPodcast #Bourbon #CaskFinish #CraftDistilling #Stranahans #HighRyeBourbon #Whiskey
Keywords
Jake Norris, Curated Barrel Project, Colorado whiskey, Stranahan's founding distiller, Laws Whiskey House, bourbon podcast, whiskey podcast, craft distilling, cask finish bourbon, oloroso sherry cask bourbon, port cask finish, high rye bourbon, direct to consumer whiskey, craft distillery startup, hybrid column pot still, whiskey club membership, whiskey zine, anti-snobbery whiskey, whiskey market 2026, Bourbon Lens
