Publications
and Writing
Books: Elevated Cocktails
From the beginning, Montanya Distillers has been as much about making great rum cocktails as it is about making great rum. As co-founder and mixologist maven, Karen decided to capture the imagination of the cocktail along with the beauty of the Colorado mountains in two books, volumes 1 and 2 of Elevated Cocktails: Craft Bartending with Montanya Rum.
The recipes found in Elevated Cocktails are tried and true, tested on thousands of drinkers in Montanya’s bar each year. They are approachable for home bartending novices as well as experienced bartenders looking for new ideas.
Available for order as a set or individually at Montanya Distillers.
Distiller Magazine
Sustainability Correspondent
Ten Ways I Freed My Distillery From Environmental Irresponsibility
Every kilowatt-hour of coal-generated electricity is 670 times more likely to kill someone than wind power. Every plastic cup used at tasting events will hang around for 450 years or more in piles of waste. Airline travel and freight shipments will produce 27% of greenhouse gases. These facts, back in 2008 when I started my distillery, made it hard for me to sleep at night.
Was 2018 Truly the Year of the Woman?
2018 was widely touted as the Year of the Woman by The New York Times, The Brookings Institution, CNN and more.
The year brought heightened awareness and dialogue initiated by women who contend with sexual harassment at work. High-profile actors toppled from grace for sexual predation. Prominent chefs and bartenders were ousted from well-loved spots for assaulting female employees. Politicians and their appointees were accused of bad behavior on national television.
One of the greatest consumer shifts in America over the last thirty years has been back toward buying from local producers, away from larger corporations. We like to know who grew our food, distilled our spirits and brewed our beer. We have begun to actively care about and research how companies operate, take care of their employees, make their products and steward the environment.
Intro to Come
In this day and age of jargon and dubious news, we hear terms such as green, sustainable, carbon footprint, renewable and eco-friendly daily. We rarely share a definition for these terms. A company might implement one sustainability practice and then call themselves a green company. Another company may go deep with hundreds of eco-friendly practices… and nobody ever hears about it.
Sustainability in the Age of Covid
“We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds.” – Aristotle Onassis
I have two Kurdish refugees living above my garage.
Whenever I feel overwhelmed by how much my world has changed since March 1, I think of them. They are young college students away from their families, stuck in a country that offered them political asylum once and now wishes they would go home. They have no dorms to live in and they have lost their college health insurance.
Ditching Trashy Events: Five Steps
As a distillery owner, I have spent nearly 10 years attending every kind of tasting and cocktail event hosted in the spirits world, in the USA and overseas. I sponsor art, music and film festivals, attend industry trade shows and bartend at some of the bar world’s most prestigious gatherings. But I am fed up. Cleaning up at the end of events, I couldn’t avoid seeing trash cans filled to overflowing…