Colorado vodka: it's as if Red Dawn happened, and the Russians whupped the Wolverine insurgency. Two decades after that fictional infiltration, premium vodka's percolated the American zeitgeist as its most popular liquor. While giant multinationals pump out the bulk of mainstream product, small batch distillers push the vodka vanguard forward from unlikely places like Palisade, Colorado.

Why Palisade? It's an agricultural oasis in the otherwise arid high desert near the Utah border. Ask any Grand Valley native about Palisade peaches, or the sweet corn from nearby Olathe, and you'll uncork memories of summer treats that stretch back to childhood. For many years, local artisans have turned those fruits into wine, honey into mead, and more recently produced vodka, bourbon, and brandies.

While long coal trains rumble just outside their converted warehouse, the alchemists of Peach Street Distillers turn sacks of Olathe sweet corn into handcrafted hooch. Just inside the entryway, barrels of bourbon await the day when charred oak and the unwavering march of time yield a mature, tawny elixir. While their bourbon ages, this fledgling company sells two flavors of their Goat brand vodka, and brandies made from local fruit: apple, apricot, peach, cherry, pear, plum and grape.

Olathe sweet corn lends a rounded and faintly sweet character to a ’Äúplain’Äù vodka unlike any mainstream high dollar brand. Their peach flavored vodka doesn't screech with shrill artificial flavors produced in a New Jersey laboratory. Goat's flavored vodka is to Norah Jones what Absolut is to Kelly Clarkson. Real peaches play a decrescendo of subtle fruit and nut notes during its fading moments in the mouth.

Despite the steamroller of conventional marketing that claims good vodka is supposed to lack any flavor or color, I prefer a vodka with character. Fifteen years ago, I tasted a bootleg bottle of Lithuanian potato vodka wrapped in plain brown paper that hid the pale golden hue of its magical contents. Its deep flavors upended my understanding of how a great vodka should taste.

With a blatant disregard for pretty packaging, that humble, unlabeled bottle held the best vodka I'll never taste again. That kiss from a Soviet bloc supermodel in babushka's clothes ruined me for any vodka after that.

Until now, that is. American microdistilleries are sprouting up in all corners of the country, echoing the micro beer revolution of the 1980's. Small producers put out distinctive liquors from the verdant hills of Vermont, to the dusty Texas hill country, from Los Angeles to Bend, Oregon. If we could overhaul the archaic morass of liquor laws that stifles this burgeoning industry, we'd have a spirited revolution in grown up drinks. Unlikely? Probably. But stranger things have happened. Perestroika, anyone?

Peach Street Distillers
144 South Kluge #2
Palisade, CO 81526
970-464-1128