The more of his rum I drank, the more he looked like Bill Gates. Greg Starr leads our little group of reporters around his new distillery in Gunbarrel, eagerly explaining the process by which he produces white rum. Starr has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, owns 25 patents and has coauthored two books on “semiconductor design methodologies,” a term that so rattles the intelligence of the layman by its mere existence that centuries ago Starr surely would’ve burned at the stake by the order of John Proctor.
The point is that he may look like Gates, but it might actually be an insult to Starr’s intelligence and industry to make that comparison.
Starr spent two years researching the science of distillation, making mashes at home and managing to not set his home on fire. After six years of effort, Starr went all in and opened Geek Spirits with his wife, Sherial, decorating the tap room with mathematical formulas, comic book photographs and pictures of esteemed scientists. Drinks are mixed in beakers, and the lighting and textiles in the room make it look like a comfortable high school science lab, if you can believe such a thing exists.
Back on the tour, Starr stands in front of a giant copper still that was imported in pieces from Germany. Assembled, it has one large chamber in the middle, and two narrow columns of the same height on either side. The three chambers are connected by a long rod over the top, with a glistening copper sphere in the middle. With shiny switches and numbered dials, foozle clocks and bandankerous vials, the whole machine looks like the machine that allowed the Sneetches to modify their bodies with stars, and then to remove stars when having a star became unpopular.
Starr’s no swindler, but his machine makes some pretty colorful transformations, too. Named “Einstein,” affectionately, the left tank has a totem pole of chambers so that different spirits can be distilled. The machine’s flexibility will allow Geek Spirits to distill whiskey, gin, vodka and more in the future.
For now, the distillery has only distilled and bottled rum. As we tour the echoing warehouse attached to the taproom, I’m holding a glass of the inaugural white rum mixed with bitters, sugar and orange zest. It’s really good rum. Starr imports tanks of molasses from various parts of the Caribbean to serve as the spirit’s base. What results after distillation is a sweet, easy-drinking rum with a strong finish that tastes like butterscotch and the hint of an earthy green like chicory or dandelion greens.
On a far wall, seven barrels rest on a two-level crate. The bottom barrels are used bourbon barrels, the top are new oak barrels. Inside are spiced versions of the white rum. Starr hands us a taste of the pre-aged spirit with the spices (vanilla and baking spices). It is sweet. Starr says the aging will remove some of the sugars from the spirit. He then pours from a smaller barrel and hands over a spiced rum in the process of aging. It is hot from the wood but seems well on its way to a complex aged spiced rum that would stand up to the best of many rum collections in Boulder County’s liquor stores.
It’s a limited release of Geek Spirit’s silver rum, so the best way to get your hands on it may be to get to the taproom. There, you can choose from several cocktails including the old fashioned geek, as well as daiquiris, punches and unique concoctions.
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