Discover The Wee Dram Whisky Bar and Their Smoky Cocktail Recipe

It all started with a craving for peated Scotch and a longing for something more creative. “I knew from day one of medical school I’d made a huge mistake,” says cofounder Stef Neubauer. “My husband was always looking for a nice, locally made, peated single malt—and it turns out those are very hard to find,” she explains. “So the idea started to blossom.” Stef stepped away from twenty years in scrubs, and Spence Neubauer, a stay-at-home dad and former ski patroller, leaned into his entrepreneurial instincts. The goal? Create a Colorado-made, Scottish-style single malt—and a place to gather around it.

That place became The Wee Dram, the smallest whisky tasting room in the U.S.—with bigger plans on the horizon. At just 135 square feet, it seats a maximum of ten guests. There’s no fridge, no sink, no dishwasher— and no room for pretension. Cocktails lean towards prohibition-era simplicity and are deeply Scotch-forward. The Smoky Manhattan? “We couldn’t cloche-smoke anything in that space—we’d all be smoked out. So we let the whisky do the work,” Stef says.

But the real magic is in the intimacy. “You can’t help but talk to everyone. Whether they want to or not, people connect. You end up seeing that everyone has good in them. And they leave feeling better for it.”

They also leave feeling the whisky. Crafted from imported peated barley and Rocky Mountain snowmelt, each sip is a smoky, soul-warming nod to both Scotland and Colorado—a perfect pour of passion, place, and purpose.

“It isn’t a typical cloche-smoked Manhattan, which is everywhere these days. This one is smoky because of our peated malt whisky. It ends up being complex, very unique, and just a killer cocktail all around.” – Stef Neubauer, cofounder