GRANBY, Colo. — Tucked away in the mountains of Grand County is C Lazy U Ranch, a guest ranch that's been around since 1919. The land is stunning in a quintessential Colorado fashion — with a burn scar still visible throughout the property.
The burn scar is from the 2020 East Troublesome Fire.
The Director of Ranch Operations, Mike Cullen, remembers that fire vividly.
“In that moment, it was scary. But we had a lot of work to do, and we were making sure we were protecting the ranch," Cullen said. “We had a great heads up from our local fire department and from the emergency services, so we were able to get out of here in time. And they gave us a good heads up so we could move our livestock, our horses, our entire team.”
Cullen estimates the fire burned 90% of the property at the ranch — destroying a guest cabin, historic barn, and team housing units, along with all of their hay and fence lines.
“In the moment, I think we didn't know what was going to be here when we drove back on the property," Cullen remembered.
Jeremy Belnap, the general manager of the ranch, said after surviving a wildfire there are many aspects of life taken into consideration that were not noticed before the destruction. For Belnap, one of those is the resilience of aspen groves.
“The network of aspen groves, a majority of it is underground," said Belnap. “They are able to regenerate so quickly. So the thing about a wildfire is that it can be so devastating, but also the regeneration and the ability for those trees to grow back so quickly.”
Following the fire, there have been many unexpected positive moments on the property. Rick Talley and Owen Locke brainstormed one of those moments as the co-founders of Locke + Co Distilling.
“We're a Colorado whiskey company," said Talley. "We just do whiskey. All of them finished with unique aspen wood.”
While making whiskey, the two fell in love with using aspen trees in the process.
“We use oak barrels for our products and then all our whiskey's touch aspen wood, which is going to add additional flavors and filtration to it," Locke explained. “Cutting it [the aspen] differently allows us to do extra filtration and create unique flavors like brown sugar, cinnamon, some fig, toffee notes as well."
The aspen wood is a unique element to Talley and Locke's whiskey — which is charred before the slices are placed in the whiskey barrels for eight months.
“We drive by big aspens were like that would make good whiskey right there," Talley said with a laugh.
The two wanted to collaborate with C Lazy U Ranch before the East Troublesome Fire which came just months after their initial idea. Still, Locke and Talley decided to incorporate some of the burned aspen trees into their whiskey.
“Let's use some of the devastation and create something really wonderful out of it," said Talley. “Not only is it using the ranch, the wood that was burned in the fire, and creating something wonderful, but from every sale of the bottle, we're giving money back to the first responders that helped save so many homes around here.”
The whiskey — which is bottled in special batches sold only in Colorado — acts as a conduit to remember the devastation of the fire, and how far the ranch has come since then.
“It sparks the interest of the story, and not in a negative way, but a way to just talk about everyone who stepped up, helped out, the whole community of Grand County," said Cullen. “You can share a drink with them, and can start that story for us to talk about it.”
