Laws Whiskey House sits on an industrial strip of Denver, across the street from some none-too-exotic houses and a storage centre. The train tracks are across the street in the other direction. Once you’ve entered the concrete building, however, you’d be forgiven if you thought you were in a boutique hotel in the city’s hyper-cool River North Art District, or RiNo. The first thing you see is the arc of iron poles, which hugs a curved couch in the lobby area and runs against the rail of the spiral staircase. Sit on the couch and look up into the wide cylindrical structure and you have a good idea of what it feels like to be shrunk into a tiny human and deposited into a barrel.
But before you head up the stairs to the sprawling tasting room, a handsome, airy space thanks to the dark wood and vaunted ceiling, you’ll hang a right and enter the Whiskey Church, a small space with vast Gothic windows and heavy wood pews assembled by Al Laws, the distillery’s founder and president, and his stepfather. On a Tuesday this past winter, Al took care to show me the furniture’s meticulous joinery, but not before pointing out the six grain silos outside the window that stand almost like mighty stakes in the ground marking the distillery’s territory in the region — a region that’s reflected in the whiskey.
“We’re in the valley between two mountain ranges. We’re a mile above sea level. Our grain is grown 7,500 feet above sea level. The weather from the west comes ripping across the mountains. Snow affects the barometric pressure,” says Al. “There are steep spikes in pressure because of the systems rolling across. And they’re not slow-moving systems.” Here in the American West, barometric pressure works like an ingredient, playing a role in how these pot-distilled whiskeys age. Variations in pressure affect the proof point and enhance the flavour profile, bringing a deep oak and gingerbread spice note to the flagship Four Grain Bourbon.
The ambiance also impacts distillation itself. A mile above sea level, there’s no atmosphere, so water boils at a higher temperature, he explains. But the air and pressure are hardly the only local influence. Al ticks off the nearby natural resources used to make his whiskeys: water is from the Rio Grande; corn is grown at Whiskey Sisters Supply, a family farm three hours east; heirloom wheat, barley, and rye are grown and, in some cases, also malted at Colorado Malting Company. Laws whiskeys are cut with water from Eldorado Springs.
“All whiskey comes from somewhere. Where it comes from defines it. It should taste like where it comes from,” says Al, whose arms are adorned with tattoos — tributes to Pearl Jam, Poseidon’s trident, a gargoyle on a whiskey barrel, its eyes wandering in a moment of dreamy contemplation. “Our flavour comes from local grains, and grain varietals are like grapes. Terroir affects flavour. Everything we do here is a product of where we are.”
It’s also, of course, a product of process. The distillery has a 1,000-gallon cooker and space for a second one. Open fermentation for anywhere between three and four days in a 1,000-gallon tank is the modus operandi here. They use a 2,000-gallon stripping still and 500-gallon spirit still. And there are two ageing warehouses — concrete buildings with controlled airflow. One houses about 2,200 barrels while a bigger one holds about 3,800. On the Tuesday in February that I visited, I was particularly taken by an area reserved for experimental ageing projects: wheat whiskey in Curaçao, bourbon in Cognac and Sauternes barrels, rye in Laird’s barrels, casks from the historic ninth-generation-run applejack distillery in New Jersey.
I asked Al how he makes decisions for his experimental batches.
“I look at how the barrels might provide highlights in the base whiskey. We hypothesise what we’re looking for in terms of pickup,” he explains. The barrel from Laird’s accentuates the apple-y note in the Four Grain bourbon. Sauterne casks bring out the natural orange notes in the wheat whiskey. It’s so pronounced, in fact, that you could make the case for drinking it like a cocktail. Al does. (“You can just add a cherry and drink it on ice,” he says.)
“With some of the bigger flavours, like Cabernet Sauvignon, we’re looking for tannins, like with French oak containers,” he continues. “We understand that you have to give it year to two years. Ageing things and finishing for longer and longer gives it more integration. It pulls what it pulls pretty early, then it’s about nuanced integration.”
The Church where I first met Al is part of the Whiskey Sanctuary, a 4,000-square-foot, two-storey feat of brutalism that opened in December 2024. The company describes it as a “tasting room”, but it’s more of a series of rooms, each an immersive experience in its own right. The upstairs bar has a modern-glam feel with a Gothic bone structure. It’s dimly lit and features all kinds of dramatic dark wood surfaces, exposed concrete and stained glass. At a sleek horseshoe bar, there’s a cocktail list that runs the gamut from classics, like a Whiskey Sour and Old Fashioned, to eccentric twists on familiar recipes, like a peach-basil whiskey smash. Of course, there’s also individual whiskeys to taste.
But the most jaw-dropping part might be the adjoining lounge. It strikes a balance between refined uptown style and cosy, wood-cabin comfort. Modern paintings with vintage Western themes hang on the wall and expansive windows face west onto the mountains. It’s a wide-angle snapshot of the natural majesty that inspires Al — and his whiskeys.
This is all an expansion of the original distillery, which opened in 2011. Al arrived in Colorado from Manhattan, where he worked as a research analyst in the energy sector. But it was an exhausting rat race. His whiskey obsession, which was morphing into an impressive collection, sabotaged his finance career. It was time to follow his passion. As luck would have it, his job transferred him to Denver. After leaving Wall Street behind geographically, he abandoned it emotionally, too.
He found a space for his distillery in a former distribution warehouse for porn — and no, that’s not a typo. (I thought he said “corn” when he first told me, which would’ve made good sense.) And yes, they occasionally receive packages for the former tenant.
The distillery’s core lineup captures the obsession with heirloom grains. The whiskies are rooted in the four “mother grains”, as Al puts it: corn, barley, rye, and wheat. In addition to the standard Four Grain Straight Bourbon and Straight Rye, Laws sells cask-strength and bonded expressions of both. In 2024, its whiskeys were among those of seven Colorado distilleries that won accolades at the World Whiskies Awards.
But Al is always ready to wax rhapsodic about the Headwater Series, which you could call its activist release. Colorado poses an unusual challenge when it comes to its waterways. Even rainwater is owned based on whose land it falls on. Most land is sold for water rights if there’s an aquifer. “Water rights are complicated here and in most of the west,” says Al “Water sources are under threat.”
Each annual Headwater release is a tribute to a river in the state, which is experiencing more intense drought conditions each year. Ten per cent of the proceeds from sales of each Headwater release goes to a related non-profit organisation. Rio Grande Rye, the second in the series, was released in May. It’s distilled from 100 per cent heirloom rye grown in the San Luis Valley and proofed with purified water from the Rio Grande. The series debuted with the June 2024 release of the Colorado River Four Grain Straight Bourbon, which was proofed with purified water from the namesake river collected just outside Rocky Mountain National Park.
This take-from-the-land-then-give-back ethos embodies the meaning of the knot emblazoned on the whiskey’s label. It’s an elaborate rendition of the infinity symbol. “Infinity implies continuous improvement of artistry and technique,” he says. “We continue to do what we do and we get better. And we always pay homage to and respect time. Whiskey takes time.”
