The Locke’s family roots in Colorado moonshining go back several generations. Owen Locke kept the craft tradition alive with an early knack for brewing that continued through college to graduate school, where he reconnected with Rick Talley
The high school friends and lacrosse teammates immediately recognized that their collaborative styles complimented each other well, working through MBA degrees together at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business as hand sale experts for Beam Suntory. It didn’t take them long to realize they could create something bolder and wilder than the premier spirits they offered at countless tastings. In 2010, the team bought a 23-gallon still that turned a garage hobby into a lifestyle with their first whiskey batches aged in small barrels.
Owen Locke
For Owen, the independent spirit of the Wild West still inspires the sixth-generation Colorado native with a wild desire to create, to build, to become—or celebrate—anything. At 15, he started sourcing home-brew ingredients, refining his fermentation skills ever since. Rye always stood out: the complexities and unique flavors it brings to cocktails. It just tasted a bit more wild than other whiskey.
Rick Talley
Rick shares the same Colorado-bred love of the outdoors—eager to answer the pull toward the peaks with friends and family, and to explore deeper. Drawn from an early age to the high country’s historic forts, mines, and ranches of past lives forged and fueled by whiskey, he shares the same appreciation of the broad base that rye provides other cocktails, as well as its simple balance to act on its own.