10th Mountain Whiskey & Spirit

High in the Eagle River valley west of Vail, 10th Mountain Whiskey & Spirit Company turns Colorado grain and Rocky Mountain snowmelt into bourbon, rye, American single malt, brandy, potato vodka and cordials. This is a genuine grain-to-glass operation rather than a label on someone else's barrels: an independent 2024 site visit documented the mill, cooker, fermenters, a 500-gallon Vendome hybrid pot still, on-site barrel aging and hand bottling, with roughly seven whiskey barrels filled each week.

History & Heritage

The company was founded in 2014 by Ryan Thompson and Christian Avignon, taking its name from the 10th Mountain Division, the Army mountain warfare unit that trained at Camp Hale in the Colorado Rockies and whose veterans went on to shape the state's ski country. Thompson and the company later became adverse parties to Avignon in a 2020 lawsuit, and the reviewed public record does not establish the outcome of that litigation or the exact date of any ownership transfer. As of July 2026, the business operates as 10th Mountain Whiskey and Spirit Company LLC, with Ryan Thompson publicly identified as owner, founder and chief executive, and no parent company or outside acquisition on record. Shawn Hogan is the master distiller responsible for day-to-day production. The licensed manufacturing premises sits at 500 Trail Gulch Road, Unit A, Gypsum, Colorado, with a second tasting room in Vail Village.

The Whiskey

The bourbon is built on a mash bill of 75 percent Colorado corn, 20 percent American rye and 5 percent malted barley, aged in new charred oak at altitude. The rye carries dark fruit and light caramel with a hint of cinnamon, finishing dry with lingering spice and oak. The American single malt uses a 100 percent malted barley mash bill and spends two years in new American oak with a number 4 char. Beyond whiskey, the house makes a potato vodka distilled purely from potatoes with no additives, and Alpenglow, a cordial infused with sun-ripened peach and herbaceous sage over a soft vanilla base.

The results have been decorated. The rye took Best in Class Gold at the 2021 Whiskies of the World Awards, and RackHouse Whiskey Club named the distillery its 2021 Craft Distillery of the Year. At the 2025 San Francisco World Spirits Competition the house collected eight medals: Double Gold and a score of 98 for the bourbon, Gold for the Potato Vodka and for Rye Batch 81, Silver for the American Single Malt, the brandy and the Old Fashioned bitters, and Bronze for the Alpenglow cordial and the Chocolate Rye Whiskey. Jim Murray's Whisky Bible rated the bourbon 92 points in the 2018 edition and the rye 94, and the American single malt earned Gold with 90 points at the 2023 Bartender Spirits Awards.

Why It Matters

Colorado has no shortage of whiskey labels, and a good number of them are sourced liquid dressed in mountain imagery. 10th Mountain is the other kind of operation, small enough that the still, the rickhouse and the bottling line all sit under one roof in Gypsum, and consistent enough that the same house has medaled across bourbon, rye, single malt, brandy, vodka and bitters in a single competition year. For its tenth anniversary in 2024 the distillery released limited bourbon, rye and single malt collaborations created by Shawn Hogan with BLACKENED master distiller Rob Dietrich, with proceeds benefiting veterans living with PTSD, a fitting return to the division the name honors. For those who appreciate good whiskey, it is one of the clearest examples of what high-altitude American craft distilling can do when the producer owns every step of the process.

Visiting the Distillery

Tours of the Gypsum distillery are available by reservation and are listed for Friday and Saturday, with an on-site tasting room pouring flights and cocktails. Gypsum hours run Sunday and Monday from 1 to 8 p.m., Thursday through Saturday from 1 to 9 p.m., closed Tuesday and Wednesday. The Vail Village tasting room at 227 Bridge Street is open daily.