Leopold Bros sits in an industrial stretch of northeast Denver, housed in a sprawling 30,000-square-foot former Coors facility that the Leopold brothers transformed into their craft distillery playground. Todd and Scott Leopold founded the operation in 1999, starting first in Michigan before relocating to Colorado in 2008 to take advantage of the state’s better craft distilling laws. Todd handles the distilling side with his background in malting and environmental chemistry, while Scott manages operations with his MBA and food industry experience. They’ve built their reputation on obsessive attention to historical production methods, using floor malting, open fermentation, and even growing their own grain on a 40-acre farm in Hotchkiss, Colorado. The facility produces everything from whiskey and gin to absinthe and fruit brandies, with most spirits made entirely from scratch using techniques that date back centuries. The Leopold story really started when Todd spent time in Germany studying traditional malting techniques and fell in love with the craft of making spirits the old way. They’re not just throwing around marketing terms about ‘traditional methods’ – they actually floor-malt their own barley, a labor-intensive process that maybe five distilleries in America still do. Their Three Chamber Still, a custom-built hybrid pot still system, allows them to create incredibly clean distillates while maintaining full control over every cut. The brothers have also invested heavily in aging, with a separate barrel house holding thousands of barrels of whiskey that won’t be ready for years. This isn’t a quick-turnaround operation – they’re playing the long game. Visitors get to see this entire process in action, from the malting floors where barley is hand-turned daily to the fermentation room with its wooden washbacks imported from Scotland. The tasting room showcases their full range, including their award-winning Navy Strength Gin and their Maryland-Style Rye that took home World Whisky of the Year. What makes Leopold Bros worth your time isn’t just the spirits – it’s seeing two brothers who’ve created something genuinely different in American craft distilling, where attention to detail borders on obsession and every bottle reflects techniques most distilleries abandoned decades ago.