In May of 2022 we hosted our very first episode of Behind the Barrel on KAFM Community Radio, the local community radio of the Grand Junction area. Over the past year we have hosted a different brewer, winemaker, or distiller from Western Colorado each month to learn more about the stories behind each guest.
We have thoroughly enjoyed spending time with each of our guests, and we have learned a lot from them. Some of our favorite things that we learned from each guest on Behind the Barrel are:
Garrett Portra of Carlson Vineyards is an avid turkey hunter.
Chris Dutton of Gemini Beer Company is a huge Star Wars fan.
Juliann Adams of Vines 79 Wine Barn lived in the small town of Mesa and would bring grapes from the Grand Valley up to Mesa to make wine.
Eli Gerson of Ramblebine Brewing Company won best in show at the very first homebrewing competition he entered.
Sam Frye of Copper Club Brewing Company spent a summer on an island doing conservation work.
Ryan and Emma Dutch of Trail Life Brewing met at a climbing gym; Ryan was working as the manager and was intrigued by Emma’s occupation of ‘brewer’ from her climbing gym waiver. The rest is history.
James Melling of Carboy Winery was working throughout the country in commercial real estate, construction, and development prior to landing at Carboy.
Linda Brauns and her husband Gary of Restoration Vineyards have been restoring a wide variety of items - VW bugs, houses, and vineyards - since high school.
Dustin LeMoine and Davy Lindig said that Peach Street Distillers uses a lot of local grains and fruit in their products. They harvested at least 250,000 pounds of local fruit in the previous season.
Danny Wilson of Palisade Brewing Company loves to cook and gains inspiration from the many places he has traveled.
Jayme Henderson and Steve Steese of The Storm Cellar needed to harvest their ripe grapes before the bear in the area ate them all. These grapes had the exact characteristics necessary for making sparkling wine so they made their very first sparkling wine out of them - a happy accident!
Kaibab Sauvage of Sauvage Spectrum grew up farming in Palisade and loves rafting.
To access our full archive of episodes and listen to any of these conversations, click here.
Western Colorado is still very young in terms of the beer, wine, and distillery scenes and we are grateful to have this awesome platform to showcase our local talent. We look forward to many more episodes of Behind the Barrel!
Cheers,
Sarah and Jason
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