Mythology Distillery, an award-winning craft whiskey and gin distillery currently based in Denver, has announced plans to consolidate its operations and make Steamboat Springs its new home by spring 2023.

Scott Yeates, company founder and president, was at the Steamboat location along with his dog Whiskey on Friday. Yeates has lived in Steamboat with his wife, Lauren, and the couple’s other dog Telle since 2017, and he said he is excited to bring Mythology to town.

“We live here, we are part of the community and my other business partner lived up here for a long time,” Yeates said. “We opened Mythology in Denver because that’s where we’re originally from, and we had a really great opportunity to open in Denver. I’ve effectively run the company from up here since we opened, and when it came to wanting to consolidate, we had aspirations and a dream to open up here (in Steamboat).”

However, Yeates said he was not sure the move would be possible. Now that he has purchased the property, it’s hard for him to hide his excitement.

“We didn’t know if we could find anything, so we were looking kind of all over the state,” Yeates said. “When the Butcherknife property became available, it was the absolute perfect opportunity, and we jumped on it.”

Mythology, a craft distillery, purchased the brewery property at 2875 Elk River Road, which includes the brewery and two undeveloped lots. Yeates plans to move the operations to Steamboat in January or February 2023 and open a tasting room and restaurant in the spring.

“As part of building out this tasting room, we want to create a full experience with the food, cocktails and everything,” Yeates said.

When renovations are completed, Mythology will utilize the 5,000-square-foot building for production, bottle sales and merchandise. The owners also plan to expand by building a rack house for aging whiskey in addition to the tasting room with a whiskey garden. Yeates said Mythology will also offer tours of the facility.

“Our approach with our new home is to foster education and a community environment by offering distillery tours where guests get to learn about distillation, barrel maturation, taste gin straight off the still and whiskey straight from the barrel,” he said. “Then be able to enjoy cocktails with friends around a fireplace or on a Priest Creek chair.”

Mythology is currently located in Denver where it has a distillery and cocktail bar as well as a secondary production facility. Mythology will continue to operate a tasting room at its Denver location.

“We’re thrilled to have a customer following in Colorado and now outside of Colorado that seeks out our whiskeys and gin. We’re working around the clock to keep up with demand,” Yeates said. “We’ve turned down distribution opportunities because of supply constraints, so earlier this year we began exploring opportunities to consolidate our operations and increase our production capacity. The Steamboat location is amazing since it allows us to expand our production and reach a national audience in a great community.”

Yeates, Scott Burg and Mike Zakhem — all Colorado natives — founded Mythology in 2018 with a passion to bring people together to share stories while enjoying whiskey and gin cocktails. Since then, Mythology has grown into one of Colorado’s fastest growing distillers and expanded distribution of its Best Friend Bourbon, Hell Bear American Whiskey and Needle Pig Gin to California, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Michigan and Montana.

The distillery was recognized as one of Denver’s top distilleries by 5280 magazine and Denver Westword. Mythology’s whiskey, gin and vodka also have won more than 50 domestic and international awards.

Butcherknife closed its doors in March 2020 at the start of the pandemic and never reopened. Colorado Brewery List names it as one of 32 breweries that closed during the pandemic.

John F. Russell is the business reporter at the Steamboat Pilot & Today. To reach him, call 970-871-4209, email jrussell@SteamboatPilot.com or follow him on Twitter @Framp1966.