The purpose of this blog is to share something we love with people in the world. Daniel, AKA Avan DeBar has grown from an imbiber to a collector over his long life, 26 whole years! Dan has taught me a lot about appreciation of all things fermented and distilled. Evolving me from Washington Apples and Boones Farm to a preference for a well-made Gin or Bourbon cocktail. We have well over 300 bottles of various spirits from liquors to scotch and everything in between. This is approximately one mastiff long by one mastiff wide if all placed on the floor. We have recently obtained some shelving to properly display our collection but we have already outgrown it and are on a mission to locate more storage, this is especially pressing with the 51 bottles coming from our adventure on the Spirits Trail last year.

Dan and I both work the renaissance festival, though we started at very different times. Dan carried one or two flasks. He learned of another participant carrying four flasks which were unique and different from what you usually find at the retail stores these days. This piqued his interest as well as his competitive spirit. Never wanting to be out done he began to collect more and more flasks, I believe the count is up to 75. Of course, you can’t carry the same thing in every flask so his collection of liquors and spirits grew with it. He enjoyed sharing with his close friends. He especially enjoyed sharing something new or unique that his friends may not have experienced before. It became a game to find the strangest, most delicious alcohols to share with his friends. People began to gift or recommend new and interesting items causing the collection to grow to enormous proportions.

Our life has always been like that, Dan never does anything half way. If he sets his mind to something, he does it, and he does it as intensely as he can possibly can. 

We live in Colorado Springs, Colorado which is at the epicenter of the boom of craft distilleries in the mountain west. In Colorado Springs we have Distillery 291, Axe and The Oak, Lee Spirits, Colorado Gold who all participated in the Colorado Spirits trail in 2018. I will go into more details regarding each of these locations as we complete the trail again this year.  We are close friends with the owners of 291, Axe and the Oak and Lee Spirits. Dan has known Mike Myers (of Distillery 291) since 2012 when he was still working out of a basement workshop. We thoroughly enjoy meeting the people in this industry, from the founders, distillers, bartenders and brand ambassadors. They have wonderful stories to tell over some of the best spirits around.

I intend to have some about us and our story posts leading up to the beginning of the 2019 spirits trail. This will include photos of the collection, details about what the 2018 Spirits trail entailed and some of our favorite stories from that trip and our favorite locations for food and drink in Colorful Colorado.

I look forward to sharing their stories and ours while we partake on our adventure on the 2019 Colorado Spirits Trail.