Linnea Covington
Audio By Carbonatix
Eight years after its debut in the Bakery neighborhood, the city’s first business to secure a distillery pub license back in 2018 has announced that it will close its doors for good this month.
But Denver Distillery, which is located at 244 South Broadway, will end its run on a high note, with a St. Patrick’s Day party on Tuesday, March 17. Until then, it will continue to operate during its regular hours. The distillery will also be open special hours for bottle sales only; those details will be posted on its website.
Director of operations Chris Anderson-Tarver says the business was quietly put up for sale about a year ago, and while the team fielded some inquiries, they ultimately didn’t find the right suitor. The distillery wasn’t necessarily taking on water, but a combination of factors pushed it towards the decision. While the business was up for sale, Anderson-Tarver notes, his father-in-law, owner Ron Tarver, decided he was ready to retire.
“We were also looking at all the financial headwinds that everyone else is seeing,” Anderson-Tarver says. “From increased costs, from everything from tariffs to property taxes, and we’re a really, really small operation. We don’t really have much negotiating power. We don’t have much in terms of buffer. We’re a small little spot that makes really great products from scratch, and it’s definitely hard to weather these ups and downs and all the market headwinds that we see coming at us and have already experienced.”
Denver Distillery’s upcoming event schedule includes a goodbye party featuring DJ Pablo Cruz on Friday, March 13, and a final St. Patrick’s Day party featuring the first (and last) band to play at the distillery: Paddy Hooligans. As it prepares to wrap up operations, the tasting room team will dust off classics from the old drink menus to feature a throwback cocktail each weekend.
Joseph Burns Photography
Anderson-Tarver will unwind the distillery assets after that, selling off everything from the remaining bottle inventory to distilling equipment, then prepare the space, which Tarver owns, for a future renter. He’s proud of Denver Distillery’s run, and its offerings, which include sweet potato vodka, gin, bourbons and rums (including a bottled-in-bond dunder rum that was named to VinePair’s 30 best rums of 2025), as well as a Japanese-style sweet potato shochu, apple pie moonshine and coffee liqueur.
“We’re small, but we’ve got a fun little operation,” he notes. “We’re really proud of — not only do we make our spirits from scratch, everything in-house — but we also do some really fun, innovative cocktails that we come up with ourselves.”
The team started without any commercial distilling experience. Anderson Tarver’s father-in-law already owned the physical space, which he describes as “a building that has wood ceilings and ghost sightings and exposed brick.” In that space, the family took on a project that proved to be an interesting endeavor.
“I think he’d be the first to say that he didn’t really fully know what he was getting himself into,” Anderson-Tarver says of his father-in-law, “especially in terms of a distillery that’s doing everything from scratch, that’s trying to do local, all the things that make us really fun and special. And so here we are eight years later, and we’re really, really proud of what we’ve brought to the community in terms of the quality that we have and the creativity that we were known for.”
Denver Distillery is located at 244 South Broadway and will be open from 5 to 10 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 3 to 10 p.m. Saturday and 2 to 8 p.m. Sunday through March 17. Guests can also visit from 1 to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday as the distillery bottles its last barrels. For more information, visit denverdistillery.com.
