If you’ve spent time in the Maverick’s halfpipe on the mountain, you’ll feel at home in the new Stranahan’s Whiskey Barrels outside of The Range food hall at the resort’s base (they’re the same shape!). The new two-hour-long tasting and drinking experience lets you reserve one of three custom cedar Stranahan’s barrels for a chef-curated, four-course menu paired with a flight of Stranahan’s whiskey, with specialty cocktails also available. The barrels seat up to four and offer a full view of the mountain.
“People love it,” says assistant GM Matt Ford. “We had a pretty busy fall and winter. And the food’s totally different from anything else we serve.”
The menu from head chef Josh “Puck” Puchner rotates every month. “They give us pretty free rein,” he says. “To come up with each course for the menu we sat down and tasted the bourbons and saw what fit.” Your courses might include a starter of prosciutto flatbread, with black truffles, pecorino and arugla; trout rillette, with shallot jam, roe, and sesame lavish; ricotta agnoletti, with brown butter sauce, seared wagyu, and blistered heirloom tomatoes; and a whisky cream puff for desert. Your pairings include Blue Peak single malt, double distilled at high altitude and aged four years in new American oak barrels with a #3 char; Original (OG Lounge), a small batch single malt cut to proof; Sherry Cask, a double distilled 100 percent malted barley aged in virgin American oak barrels and transferred to Spanish Oloroso Sherry barrels to cask finish; and Diamond Peak, a marriage of Stranahan’s with two years in a cask that held extra anejo Reserva de Familia tequila (the result: a burst of herbal and peppery brightness with agave sweetness). Want a specialty concoction? Try Giggle Water, with Stranahan’s, Drambuie, honey and cinnamon; Oak Overcoat, with a yellow label Stranahan’s Manhattan; or Old Bird, a New York sour with Sherry Cask Stranahan’s, egg whites, simple syrup, lemon, and a float of Josh Vineyards Cabernet.
“It’s definitely a lot of bourbon, says Ford of the two-hour sitting. “You’ll be glad you have all that food.”
