Leopold Bros.

Leopold Bros. is the Denver craft distillery founded by brothers Todd and Scott Leopold — both Colorado natives — whose multi-decade commitment to pre-Prohibition American whiskey production techniques has produced one of the most editorially respected craft American whiskey operations of the modern era, and the only distillery in the world to operate a three-chamber rye still in over 50 years. The brothers originally founded Leopold Bros in Michigan in 1999 after Scott completed a brewing degree at the Siebel Institute and Todd trained in fermentation science at the Doemens Institute in Germany. After several years of mid-scale operation in Michigan, the brothers and their families moved the business back to their home state of Colorado in 2008, eventually opening the current Leopold Bros. distillery and 18,000-square-foot facility in Denver's Northfield neighborhood in 2014. The technical commitment that defines Leopold Bros is the three-chamber rye still — a piece of pre-Prohibition American distilling technology that had not been commercially manufactured anywhere in the world since the 1920s. Todd Leopold spent years researching the historical production technique, then commissioned the only working three-chamber still built in over five decades. The still produces an exceptionally heavy-bodied, low-distillation-proof rye whiskey (entering the barrel at much lower proof than column-still rye, which preserves more grain character) that's structurally closer to the pre-Pr…