About
Golden Moon Distillery – Maison De La Vie, Ltd. was founded by Stephen Gould and Karen Knight in early 2008 specifically to produce premium hand-crafted herbal liquors and liqueurs using the best available herbs, spices and botanicals, and made with the same type of artisan production processes utilized by distillers making premium products in the mid-to-late 1800s. The heart of Golden Moon Distillery is Mr. Gould’s world-class research library containing hundreds of rare books on distillation and related products and processes, some dating back to the 1500s. Most of the collection dates from the late 1700s to the early 1900s, though there are a few titles that are much older, or newer. Maison De La Vie currently has four antique stills at our pilot plant in Golden. Our stills date from the early to mid-1900’s. Maison De La Vie uses environmentally friendly packaging and business practices as much as possible. We source as many materials as we can from local producers (reducing shipping and the related carbon footprint), and are working with local wineries to utilize some of their cast-off materials in our production and packaging processes. Our solid waste from our distilling processes is used as compost and feed by local farmers and gardeners. We produce Gin, Absinthe, Grappa, Apple Jack and Specialty Liquors / Liqueurs including our Creme de Violette and Amer dit Picon.
Golden Moon Distillery Apple Jack is distilled from a blend of Colorado-grown cider apples. We work with the cidery to begin processing the cider for distillation at the point where the apples are crushed. We pitch yeast for fermentation as the apples come out of the crusher and then transfer the cider back to the distillery where it is allowed to ferment. This insures that we capture the freshness of the fruit in our final product. Once fermentation is completed we distill the cider to make a traditional American-style apple brandy or Apple Jack. This is then lightly oak-aged and bottled.