If your home bar looks more like a whiskey museum than a place to pour a drink, Jake Norris has a bone to pick with you. The veteran Colorado distiller behind Stranahan’s and Laws Whiskey House is urging drinkers to stop stockpiling bourbon and start cracking bottles open. His vehicle for that message is the Curated Barrel Project, a membership-driven series built around small-batch cask finishes and intimate dinners in an Arvada warehouse.
The Control: the launch bottle
The first release in the series is called The Control, a seven-year straight bourbon built on a high-rye mash bill of 75% corn, 21% rye and 4% malted barley. It was aged in new American oak and bottled for a direct-to-consumer debut run. The batch comes in at roughly 400 bottles, with a price tag of about $99, according to The Denver Post.
Memberships, cask finishes and the plan
Norris is not stopping at one bottle. He has mapped out eight different bourbon expressions over the next two years, with future releases set to be finished in Cognac, port and other spirit casks. As outlined by The Curated Barrel Project, an $800 membership secures a bottle from each of the eight planned releases plus a subscriber-only bonus bottle. Members also get some swag and access perks, including a tote, a mug and preferred access to quarterly tasting dinners.
From North Carolina barrels to an Arvada warehouse
The base bourbon for The Control was produced to Norris’ specifications at Southern Distilling Company in North Carolina, using barrels he had earmarked years ago that have now reached seven years of age. Westword reports that he is in the process of readying a yet-to-be-named warehouse distillery in Arvada, where he plans to host dinners and sell Curated Barrel Project releases directly to visitors.
Pop-up dinner this week
Even before that distillery space officially comes online, Norris is testing the dinner concept. He is staging a 50-person whiskey-pairing pop-up on May 28, featuring a four-course menu. Tickets were listed at $250 per person, and in a quirky twist, attendees are being asked to bring their own plates and flatware. Those details were reported by The Denver Post.
Why Norris wants people to drink, not collect
Norris frames the Curated Barrel Project as a push to turn whiskey back into a shared experience instead of a dust-gathering trophy. Each release is meant to be paired with extras like a zine, a playlist and warehouse dinners that encourage people to actually open the bottle. In a Q&A, Whiskey Reviewer quotes him calling the effort “a big art project” that is intended to deepen conversation and spark memorable moments around a bottle.
How to buy and what’s next
For now, the Curated Barrel Project drops are being sold straight from the source. Bottles are available direct-to-consumer through the project’s website, either as individual purchases or via subscription, and members get bonuses and priority access to the dinners, according to The Curated Barrel Project. Norris plans to keep a quarterly release schedule as the Arvada distillery comes together, using the membership model to funnel bottles to people who intend to drink them rather than chase the secondary market.
