There are trendy bars, brewpubs, as well as honky tonks and a handful of authentic mining-era 19th century saloons. The mountain resorts are famous for their apres-ski nightlife and clubs.
There is a long, storied history between drinking and the area.
It's unclear whether the Ancestral Puebloans drank. The conventional scientific wisdom says no, and that alcohol was introduced to Southwestern Colorado by the Spanish, 200 years after the Puebloan peoples left the region. However, a recent study conducted at Sandia National Laboratories says the Puebloans may have brewed their own beer using corn in clay pots. Using gas chromatography and mass spectrometers to analyze vapors produced by mild heating of pot samples, scientists produced chemicals associated with alcohol. So were the first microbreweries in the area inside the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde? Perhaps not, since the corn could have fermented unintentionally on its own inside the clay containers.
Alcohol trickled into the region in between 1800 and 1840 with the arrival of the mountain men and fur trappers. Often working alone with long hours and in extreme conditions, many Mountain Men passed their leisure hours in the solace of drink. This is recorded in their first hand journals and in the legacy of the colorful vocabulary they left behind. For instance, cheap whiskey could be called arwerdenty whiskey, from the Spanish words "agua ardiente", which means "fiery water". Other terms for cheap whiskey include "John Barleycorn","baldface", or "panner piss" (also called "panther piss"). The trappers would carry this rot gut whiskey in a "jack of likker" a leather sack of fire water, or in "hollow woods", a Native American term for the small kegs used to haul alcohol. To drink was called "take a horn", since sometimes bone horns of bulls or bighorn sheep were fashioned into drinking flasks, or powder horns that usually contained gunpowder were converted for the purposes of partying. Whilst imbibing, the mountain men would chew or smoke "baccer" or "baccy" tobacco, also called "honeydew" or "ol Virginny," because a lot of tobacco was grown in the state of Virginia.
The culmination of all this hard living was in the drink, trade whiskey - a dubious combination of "red eye" whiskey, hot chili peppers, plug tobacco and gunpowder. (A gourmet recreation of the drink can still be sampled at The Fort Restaurant , in Morrison, Colorado), near Denver. At summertime rendezvous with other trappers and in wintertime quarters like Fort Robideaux, the mountain men would drink themselves blind with earthen jugs of trade whiskey, inducing the euphoric good feelings the fur trappers dubbed, "Shinin Times."
One note of caution - while experiencing your own "Shinin Times," you may want to take it a little slower at first. Some people find that their alcohol tolerance is lower at higher altitudes. Drink slowly until you acclimate. Otherwise, the consequences may include extreme hangover and nausea.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Southwestern Colorado
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Southwestern Colorado - updated May 2024
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Southwestern Colorado Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
