Old Elk Distilleries, LLC

Old Elk Distillery is the Fort Collins, Colorado operation founded in 2013 by serial entrepreneur Curt Richardson — the founder of OtterBox, the Fort Collins-based phone case company that grew from a Richardson garage project into a multibillion-dollar global accessories brand — as his second-act venture into American whiskey. The Old Elk facility sits in Fort Collins, the northern Colorado college town and craft-beverage capital, and represents one of the more substantial financial investments in modern craft American distilling: Richardson's OtterBox-funded capital base let Old Elk build production capacity from day one at a scale most craft startups can't approach.

The operational coup that put Old Elk on the American whiskey map was the 2016 hire of Greg Metze as Master Distiller. Metze had spent 40 years at MGP Ingredients (Indiana's massive contract distilling operation that produces sourced whiskey for most of America's well-known craft brands), where he developed the mash bills and production protocols that anchor a substantial portion of the modern American rye and bourbon market. Bringing Metze to Old Elk gave the brand instant credibility with whiskey writers and competition judges, and his "Slow Cut Proofing" process — gradual proof reduction over months rather than the standard rapid water-down before bottling — became one of the brand's most-discussed technical signatures.

The product range covers Old Elk Straight Bourbon (the flagship, a wheated-style high-malt mash bill), Old Elk Wheat Whiskey, Old Elk Straight Rye Whiskey, Old Elk Master's Blend (the higher-tier release blended by Metze personally), Old Elk Sour Mash Reserve, Dry Town Gin (Old Elk's gin program), and Nooku Bourbon Cream (a bourbon-cream liqueur that anchors the brand's broader cocktail-program distribution). By 2024 the brand had crossed 100,000 cases of annual production and achieved distribution in all 50 U.S. states — an unusually fast scaling trajectory for a craft American whiskey operation, financed by Richardson's outside capital and accelerated by Metze's industry network.

In 2025, Middle West Spirits — the Columbus, Ohio-based craft whiskey company behind OYO Whiskey — acquired Old Elk Distillery from Richardson and the Old Elk LLC ownership group, consolidating two of the larger independent craft American whiskey operations under a single parent. Operations remained in Fort Collins under the existing production and brand team. The Fort Collins visitor experience runs through the working distillery floor, the tasting room (designed around the Old Elk hunting-cabin aesthetic that anchors the brand's visual identity), and tours that highlight both the Slow Cut Proofing process and the Metze-blended limited releases that have built the brand's reputation in the past decade.