Colorado School of Mines grads customize gin with engineering skills, creativity

By Steve Graham

Method and Muse Spirits treats its gin like a global science experiment, crafting libations for their taproom and for exclusive private blends with local plants, Japanese herbs, Icelandic-type lichen and whatever else strikes their fancy.

The name draws from the methodical science of distilling, mixed with the artistic muse that drives the founders and their business.

“All of us are involved in both art and science,” said co-founder Aubrey Wigner. “I love doing sculpture. Everybody else who's in the founder group, either they do artwork, music or photography. All of us really balance that.”

All the experimentation and creativity is paying off. Wigner said the methodical and inspired spirits have already medaled at all eight spirits competitions they have entered so far.

Method and Muse opened a tasting room in Arvada this summer, but the gin-focused distillery has much deeper Colorado roots and international influences.

Three of the founders - Wigner, Rudy Sosa and James McCall - all met many years ago as undergraduates at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM) in Golden, where they engaged in tasty extracurriculars.

“We all met and fell in love with brewing beer and making dinner from all over the world with different cultures and sharing food with each other, and we all just turned into giant foodies,” Wigner said.

He had planned to launch the distillery in Michigan in 2020, but was derailed by the pandemic.

“That was a terrible time to start anything, so that idea kind of died,” Wigner said.

Then, three years ago, he moved back for a professorship at CSM, and reunited with those brewing and global dining buddies. But they had developed new tastes.

“As I got older, I just got less excited about having really filling drinks and got more excited about the things you can do with spirits and the flavors you can get that you can't get with beer,” Wigner said.

With a chemical engineering background, he got really excited about the science of making spirits.

“Distillation lets you pull out parts of flavors in really special ways,” Wigner said.

He started with whiskey and wasn’t really pleased with the results, but then he found the right spirit.

“Then I made some gin and suddenly a bunch of people were like, dude, give me a bottle of that gin,” he said. “When are you making more gin? And I was like, okay, this is like the best gin I've ever had.”

Method and Muse launched with a production facility in a Golden industrial park, but they settled on Olde Town Arvada to open their tasting room.

The bar is airy and welcoming, with live plants, maps and art reflecting the global influences in the libations.

Another co-founder, Ethan Tsai, spends a lot of time in Japan, and loves to make Japanese food. His passion led them to make one of the only Japanese-style gins in the region. The spirit is made with rare botanicals and other ingredients imported from Japan, including shisho, a minty herb native to Japan and China.

“All of our shiso comes from one village in Toyama province,” Wigner said. “We basically buy everything they produce every season.”

Another Method and Muse gin subtly incorporates Thai flavors and inspirations.

“It's not like you drink the Thai and you're like, oh, I'm having Thai food,” Wigner said. “But it's like the taste and the smells remind you of Thai food, which triggers memories of the good times you've had around that.”

All the blending is very scientific. The owners have PhDs and undergrads in materials chemistry, chemical engineering and chemistry.

“We're like a bunch of science and math nerds,” Wigner said. “We do super small one- to six-liter batches of testing stuff, then we have equipment that scales up perfectly to our 200-liter stills.”

Without the aging time of whiskey, gin allows for faster and more iterative taste testing. They are now working with a group of Boulder bartenders to craft a limited-edition gin using items found by local foragers, which will change with the season.

Another gin was crafted for a wedding. The couple fell in love on a trip to Iceland, so Wigner found a lichen that mimics Icelandic lichen.

“They remembered climbing over these rocks and smelling the lichen and feeling it in their hands, so I was like, that's going in your gin,” Wigner said.

They also make large batches of four flagship gins for the tasting room. Wigner gave the lowdown on each.

Persepolis has “big warming spices, real decreased emphasis on the juniper and like a bunch more spice forward.”
Bergamot Dreams is “like a traditional English-style London dry with an emphasis on bergamot and Earl Grey tea
French Floral’s “floral alchemy is like a French floral style gin.”
Izakaya “is the really divergent one. It’s like a really specialized Japanese style gin. There's like two places in Japan that make a similar gin.”

With a range of award-winning gins, Method and Muse is now expanding into Amaro and other bittersweet liqueurs.

Method and Muse is still doing self-distribution, and the spirits are available in select liquor stores and bars around the Denver metro area. They also offer custom gin blends for businesses or events, and have crafted exclusive drinks for weddings, corporate gifts and more.

But the best place to taste all their gins, amaros and cocktail concoctions is their Arvada tasting room, open Tuesday through Sunday at 7513 Grandview Ave. Check the website for live music, guided tastings and other events.