Tucked into a little building near the top of Green Mountain in Lakewood – almost bridging the gap between the city and the mountain highway – you will find Ballmer Peak Distillery. What started as a mere thought between old friends has grown over the past several years into a delightful neighborhood distillery and tasting room offering affordability without compromising taste and creativity – and now, boasting a second location. This is Ballmer Peak.
Austin Ada mson and Eric Strom have been friends since middle school. Growing up in Arizona – Eric made the move to Denver after college. Austin remembers visiting several times, “we would always prioritize eating and drinking at craft breweries and unique restaurants. On one of these trips in 2014 we did a bit of a brewery crawl around Golden, and after all of our stops we ended the night at a distillery tasting room, Golden Moon Speakeasy (which sadly just closed). It was at that moment, free of stress, a bit inebriated we had the idea: What if we did something like this? We like craft beer, but that market is already so saturated. We love these craft cocktails, we love spirits…. what if we started our own distillery?” Despite bringing the concept to fruition in late 2019, and facing the impossible challenge of the 2020 pandemic, Ballmer Peak stuck through and has made a real name for itself in the craft spirits world. Austin notes, “It’s been kind of a crazy path that’s shaped the business in our five years of operation. Probably one of the biggest and most impactful was the pandemic. We had been open for about three months before the lock downs and stricter regulations started. That first major pivot into making hand sanitizer and giving it away for free to anyone really put us on the map. No one knew we existed, we didn’t even have a sign on the building yet… but when we started giving away hand sanitizer back in March of 2020, we had lines around the building. And folks supported us by purchasing bottles, or coming back for a cocktail when we opened back up a few months later.”
Both the Green Mountain and newly opened Sheridan tasting rooms provide a local inspired experience offering several cocktails that highlight the uniqueness of each product with a little bit of a tiki essence – even better, no cocktail is over $12. At the Green Mountain tasting room fall is a highlight featuring options such as the Lavendar Creamsicle – Australian Style Gin, lemon, honey, cream of coconut, aquafaba, orange flower and lavender – or the Ponzu Scheme with Spiced Rum, passion fruit purée, grapefruit juice, lavender syrup, blood orange bitters and ponzu. The Sheridan location showcases just as playful of cocktails like the epic PolterRiced – vodka, rice syrup, aquafaba, grapefruit, cinnamon, cream of coconut – or the creative jab at the craft beer scene with the Do You Guys Serve Beer – Spiced and Golden Rums, molasses, Angostura, orange, and root beer bitters.
Being forced to pivot so quickly after its opening, Ballmer Peak has found a passion for increasing its sustainability as well – by finding creative uses for unwanted alcohol. “We had a winery give us 5,000 gallons of unwanted red wine which we used as a way to practice making brandy, of which we now have in barrels. We started really leaning into the sustainability side of things by attempting to divert other producers’ waste streams and turning them into a tasty product. The first of which we sold out very quickly; a dragon fruit vodka made from mispackaged hard seltzer from Denver Beer Co. Then as we got through the bulk of the pandemic, we signed on with a distribution company (CSA Distribution) giving us larger market access to the wholesale side of business, getting our products into more liquor stores, restaurants and bars. And now finally, as we complete our fifth year of operation we have opened our second location, with three times the indoor seating capacity and a much larger warehouse space, which hopefully in 2025 we will start producing and aging more products.” Austin explains.
Which brings us to the highly anticipated opening of their second location at Sheridan and Alameda crossing earlier this year. Finding the Green Mountain space cozy to its core – the need for more room quickly presented itself as the distillery grew in popularity – even if the boys didn’t expect it to happen so soon. “A friend had been pestering us to check out a nearly 5,000 sq ft location at the Alameda Crossings shopping center at Alameda and Sheridan, and after looking at it in person we were immediately impressed. We didn’t think we even had a chance to compete for a lease for the spot, but the landlord and property management were incredible to work with and willing to hear our arguments as to why they should pick us over another business. What it boiled down to is we have something more unique and interesting than just another nationwide chain.”
Each location offers a plethora of fun events like bingo, trivia and movie nights, themed cocktails – but also an intent to give back to the community that supports Ballmer Peak. “We make an effort to be community focused, at our Green Mountain location we have hosted events to clean up garbage from the neighborhoods (Gulchfest), raise money for disaster relief (Maui and Marshall fires), animal shelters (Mai Tai Mile fun run for Foothills Animals shelter) and many other nonprofits we partner buy donating auction items and collaborating with folks like The Action Center, Nivas and smaller foreign nonprofits like GenerOZity.” Austin explains – who is also the president of the Lakewood Business Association, which opens the Ballmer Peak spaces to hosting networking events for new and seasoned business owners alike. “The community is a better place when the people from the community are also the ones starting and growing businesses in their community. We owe our survival of the pandemic to the community and we love to be involved, which is why we plan to continue hosting and participating in events that benefit our community.”
With two locations now, the desire to offer a true customer first initiative holds true as a core value to both Eric and Austin – and even though they’re rocking menus offering 30+ selections “which can be a bit intimidating to some folks, our team is more than willing to explain everything and help find the perfect drink. We offer tasters of our spirits, and never want someone to pay for something they didn’t enjoy.”
Craft distilling is not exactly something new in Colorado, so staying ahead of the trends and on top of the demands of the locals isn’t exactly an easy task – but Austin confidently says “I anticipate that folks are going to start branching out into other American whiskey, gin and rums. I think we will continue to see consumers choosing higher quality products, shifting their purchases from mass produced spirits, and prioritizing buying smaller brands made locally. I hope that Ballmer Peak will continue our efforts in collaborating with other distilleries and community members by sharing recipes, techniques and even equipment in our ‘rising tide lifts all ships’ mentality, reduce and disrupt any gatekeeping mentality we encounter.”
However, don’t expect these guys to settle or slow down anytime soon. Austin ensures there is much more to come and promises “big ideas like collaborating with space technology companies to get a product in low earth orbit, to figuring out how we can convince a local farmer to build a green house large enough to grow us a crops worth of sugar cane to make a truly Colorado rum. Some of the short term and more realistic dreams are to achieve out of state distribution. We’ve had a demand across the country, and even from other countries from folks looking to buy our bottles and I would love to be able to ship them something, or partner with another business to get our stuff to their neighborhood. That’s actually something we are working on right now, and hope to be launching in some capacity in 2025.”
In a world where authenticity is rare and distilleries can be saturated and mundane, Ballmer Peak Nano Distillery stands out – proving that a commitment to community and sustainability can fuel both purpose and success. With each bottle, they not only craft spirits but hopefully are inspiring a movement – one that toasts to a brighter, more sustainable and delicious future for all.
Ballmer Peak Distillery is located at 12347 W Alameda Pkwy., Lakewood, and 275 S Sheridan Blvd., Suite 100, Lakewood. Its hours at both locations are Monday – Thursday 3 p.m. – 9 p.m., Friday 3 p.m. – 10 p.m., Saturday 1:30 p.m. – 10 p.m. and Sunday 1:30 p.m. – 9 p.m.
All photos courtesy of Austin and Eric via Ballmer Peak Instagram