Some things can’t be rushed, and a good whiskey is one of them. That is the thinking behind two new bottles from Root Shoot Spirits, a Loveland, Colorado distillery that has just put out its first 6-year American Single Malt whiskeys. The announcement came on September 15, 2026. Both bottles are limited, and both are tied to a family farm that has been working the same ground for a hundred years.
One is a 6-Year Single Barrel American Single Malt Whiskey. The other is a 6-Year Small Batch Bottled-in-Bond American Single Malt Whiskey. They are available in very limited supply in Colorado and online across the country at rootshootspirits.com.
Todd Olander, the founder and farmer behind Root Shoot, said the bottles mean more than the time they spent in oak. “These whiskies represent more than six years in a barrel,” said Olander. “They represent 100 years of our family farming this land and 10 years of Root Shoot Malting. Every bottle starts with barley we grow and malt ourselves, so being able to release both these whiskies during such a milestone year is incredibly special.”
From Barley Field to Bottle on One Piece of Land
A Fifth-Generation Farm
Root Shoot Spirits is not a typical distillery. All of its ingredients come from Olander Farms, a fifth-generation family farm in Loveland. The grain is sown and grown there, then malted by Root Shoot Malting, which is a first-generation craft malthouse on the same property. In other words, the people making the whiskey are the same people growing the grain…