Chris Ransick

It's handmade, I'm told, by a man named The Colonel, whose other passion is casting authentic Confederate artillery pieces. Like a leaded-glass window made by an artisan, the joins on this 220 gallon copper still show the maker's hand.

And so do the craft spirits made here, at DownSlope Distilling. My friends Matt and Andy Causey, along with their partner, Mitch Abate, dreamed a little dream and this was what it looked like. They use the finest ingredients, including a blend of New Mexico chilis and rare black peppercorns, chosen for the unique flavor they impart to the pepper vodka. Their vanilla flavored rum gets its rich aroma and subtle taste from a balanced blend of two different vanilla beans, neither of which was sufficient on its own.

I'm no connoisseur of spirits, though I know what I like. In this case, I liked everything I sampled at the tasting I attended this afternoon. But for me, witnessing the craft these distillers practice is the high point. Like a fine volume of poetry, a batch of single malt whiskey aging slowly in a French oak barrel conveys something remarkable, both on the tongue and in the appreciation of the making.

When asked why he and his partners have launched this venture in Centennial, Colorado, Andy paused a moment before replying. I know him and understand his passion for the craft of brewing and distilling, as well as his skills as a small business owner, so his answer didn't surprise me. In essence, he said, there is a movement that emphasizes things local; produce may be the most visible commodity in such discussions but it extends beyond that.

The Denver metro area is home to many fine brewpubs and already has a number of craft distillers plying their trade, so the time seemed right to step into the available space in that market, he said. People are interested in buying locally produced goods and that interest is only growing as consumers look for ways to buy smart and support the local economy. 

I like that idea. Denver will never truly grow out of its short pants until it learns that the best things do not always have to be imported from far off. We have the means and the expertise to craft the finer things right here, whether it be a gourmet dining experience, flavorful local produce, or a remarkable bottle of craft distilled spirits.

I'm hardly a commercial machine but in this case, if you like a fine cocktail now and then, check your local establishment for something made locally. If you're living in the Denver area, I'd recommend any of the products from DownSlope.

Potential cheddar. That's what you see here: a two pound wodge of cheese curds draining over my kitchen sink. 

Several months ago I sat in on a cheese-making demonstration conducted by one of Denver's finest chefs, Frank Bonanno. We watched (and tasted) as he assembled burrata—a delicious appetizer featuring a lemony, creamy spoonful of fresh ricotta wrapped in a tender sheet of fresh mozzarella. If you're thinking of store-bought varieties of these cheeses, as I would have before this demonstration, you're not even close. The burrata were simply amazing to eat, both in texture and flavor.

The next day I repeated the demonstration in my own home. Although my burrata were, well, somewhat malformed, the gustatory results were just as good as what Bonanno had produced. With a little practice, I'll get my burrata to have the same perfectly formed, glossy exterior as he achieved, and I look forward to throwing down a plate of those before some friends at a meal some time soon.

But if my brewing enterprises in the past have taught me anything, it's that good things can come to those who wait. Making mozzarella takes only a half-hour or so, once you know what you're doing. But what about the incredible range of cheeses that require more effort, time, and artistry, like those I saw lining the shelves of a Paris fromagerie a few years ago? Can an amateur cheese-head learn to make something like that in his home?

The only way to find out is to try it, so that's what I'm doing.

This not a pursuit for the impatient. It took most of the day to prepare the curds for a traditional cheddar. In short, I had to find the right milk—two gallons of organic, unhomogenized, whole milk—and then set it up in a large bowl that floated in a warm-water bath, the intent of which is to maintain temperatures at various ranges from 86 to 100 degrees over the course of about seven hours.

During the early stages, I added mesophilic starter and rennet, which respectively provide the right bacteria and the curding effect. There commenced much stirring and massaging of the curds to keep them separated and oozing whey, the clearish liquid that separates from the milk solids that are to become the cheese.

The picture at the top of this post shows the late stage of this draining of whey. After this, I put the curds into a mold and press and began slowly tightening the screws to squeeze out the remaining moisture. That takes about 36 hours, after which I'll air dry it for 4-5 days and then wax it and let it age in a cool place.

Did I mention patience? The aging will take anywhere from 3-12 months, depending on the sharpness I want for the cheese. I'll probably try this one out somewhere around 6 months, just to get a sense of the middle stage of sharpness and to see how I like it. That means I'll crack the wax casing on this 2-lb. cheddar some time around summer solstice.

Ultimately, the idea would be to get a half-dozen different cheeses started, and then to supplement those according to taste and preference, so as to have a variety mature and ripened at all times. I don't know whether I'll manage that level of productivity, but it does sound enticing to be able to offer a plate of several homemade cheeses, a bottle of home-brewed Pinot Noir or Chardonnay, and a nice platter of bruschetta featuring garden heirloom tomatoes on a home-baked baguette.

Well-rounded. That was the phrase my mother used when I was growing up to indicate her ultimate goal in raising a son. This was a person whose enjoyment and grasp of the world was broad and interconnected, creating a capable, confident, and stable individual. Her hand moved in my life by encouraging me to pursue a range of diverse interests: guitar lessons, ice hockey, gardening, and many others, all balanced by a commitment to hard work—mowing lawns, raking leaves, and walking a paper route through many an upstate NY winter.

I bounced off the wall of my potential plenty of times in the process, such as when I nearly bombed my trigonometry class in high school, but hey, there are limits to everything, including being broad-based. And furthermore, we need specialists—the type of people who know their main subject so well (to the exclusion of other things) that they can compose timeless music, engineer launch vehicles for space ships, and perform delicate maneuvers in neurosurgery. That some of them may not be able to comprehend a poem effectively or cook food beyond nuking a hot dog, well, so it goes.  

My mother did a heck of a job conveying the value of roundedness and in the ultimate compliment to her parenting, I strived to encourage my own kids along the same paths. We'll see if the lesson takes in the next generation.

The concept finds an expanded definition in the term Renaissance man. I recall a high school teacher who articulated the concept by describing an idealized Renaissance-era fellow who could play a smashing round of tennis, woo a lady with poetry, and then easily dispose of an opponent in a swordfight before retiring to his chambers to paint a lovely landscape and check on the progress of a scientific experiment he was conducting.

About that time, I visited Monticello, the Virginia mountain-top home of Thomas Jefferson. There, on display, were the artifacts of just such a man. I was stunned. It actually was possible, in real terms, to cultivate a life like this. Jefferson's wasn't perfect or seamless, but it was a clear manifestation of broad excellence across a range of challenging fields. It bears noting that Jefferson was truly human, and he failed at a number of very human challenges. It's a grounding fact that failure is an equal and even necessary part of being well rounded.

So I went on to adulthood carrying in mind both the idealized and real versions of the Renaissance man, informed by the insight that nothing can completely erase our flawed nature, which must also find expression. "What a piece of work is man," Hamlet says, and goes on to exalt humans as "the paragon of animals." Yet in present parlance we are more likely to hear someone say, tongue in cheek, "Yeah, he's a real piece of work." Clearly, an overachiever may, despite his many and diverse accomplishments, turn out to be an insufferable prick whose flaws loom as large as his skills.

Amid these projections of the ideal and real, I remain fascinated by the concept. This was brought home to me again when I happened upon a summarized account of Michael Gelb's How to Think Like Leonardo DaVinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day. It's that last phrase that gets me: genius every day, and conveniently, in seven steps! Well dang, let's get after that.

Gelb presents the applicable path to "an open mind that allows you to broaden your universe and increase your ability to explore it" in the Italian, as follows:

1. CURIOUSITA: Let curiousity open your mind to a state of continuous learning, one that always asks the next good question, and the next, in a quest for truth and beauty.
2. DIMOSTRAZIONE: consistently test your knowledge through experience, in a state of humility that allows you to learn from errors.
3. SENSAZIONE: closely linked to #2 above, refine your senses as a means to enliven experience and gain the best, most reliable knowledge; as a Buddhist might put it, practice mindfulness.
4. SFUMATO: rather than fight mystery and ambiguity, learn to embrace paradox and uncertainty, as aligned with Keats' concept of negative capability.
5. ARTE/SCIENZA: balance art and science, logic and imagination, so that your whole brain is in play on all the challenges that pass before you.
6. CORPORALITA: relish the body, study it and care for it fully so that you possess grace, flexibility, and poise.
7. CONNESSIONE: actively recognize and appreciate the interconnectedness of all things, and practice a sensitivity to new patterns of understanding.

That's as practical a list as I've seen in all my time considering the matter of how to be a Renaissance man. Sure, it's a post-postmodern world, and so the landscape is different than it was in the Renaissance. Or is it? It seems to me that each of those seven steps is realizable—as much today as it was in Leonardo's time.