.jpg)
970 Grand County
970 Grand County
Legacy, Resilience, and Whiskey: C Lazy U - Brady Johnson
What happens when a natural disaster threatens to destroy a century-old legacy? Join us for a heartfelt episode as we sit down with Brady Johnson from C Lazy U Guest Ranch to hear about the harrowing experience of evacuating over 200 horses during the East Troublesome Fire of 2020. Brady recounts the logistical nightmare and emotional toll of that night and the extraordinary community support pouring in through a social media call for help. We also touch upon the rich 105-year history of the ranch and how this crisis revealed the true spirit and resilience of everyone involved.
But that's not all—this episode also celebrates innovation born from adversity. Brady's long-time friend Owen Locke, founder of Locke and Co Distilling, joins us to share how a chance discovery led to creating a unique whiskey aged with charred Aspen wood. Together, they embarked on a special edition whiskey using Aspen trees affected by the fire, turning a tragic event into a remarkable venture. Lastly, we reflect on the Grand County community's commitment to rebuilding and looking forward to a brighter future. This episode is a testament to the power of resilience, creativity, and community in overcoming challenges.
My guest today is Brady Johnson. Brady is with See Lazy you Guest Ranch and we talk about the East Troublesome Fire and from that fire, how, see Lazy you forged a partnership with Lock Dilling. So sit back and enjoy my interview, brady. How are you?
Speaker 3:Good. How are you doing, Gaylene?
Speaker 1:Pretty good. It's a beautiful spring day here in Grand County.
Speaker 3:I know we're finally getting those warm days. We're looking forward to getting into summer.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Let's talk about Sea Lazy U today. Tell me a little bit about the history of the ranch.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sea Lazy U Ranch. It's a staple in Grand County. We're actually turning 105 years old this year, so we celebrate our 105th anniversary on July 24th and that date was actually called See Lazy you Ranch Day In 2019, the governor of the state of Colorado, jared Polis, he proclaimed it See Lazy you Day. So we have a proclamation for See Lazy you Day in July, but that was five years ago when we turned 100 years, and now we're 105 years old. So the ranch it really has this very storied history. It's been through everything that our country has been through, really, if you look at it that way A couple of world wars, all the good, all the bad, and most recently, obviously, the East Troublesome Fire of 2020 was a big, major event for Grand County.
Speaker 1:Yes, it was. How did that impact the ranch?
Speaker 3:Oh my Lord, it was a huge impact for us. I'd say the largest impact for the ranch was probably emotionally. Obviously's there's physical things that happened and um and and things we had to go through. But the the fire started as a tiny little fire in in the east troublesome valley. We kept close eyes on it. We were alerted right away that you know there's this little baby fire to the to the west of us and you know everybody and all of our intel going into this was oh, the fire is gonna, it's tracking kind of northeast, it's gonna miss the ranch. You guys are gonna be in decent shape, but just in case, let's be prepared.
Speaker 3:And then the fire kept growing and growing, um, as we went along and we kept looking at, going, okay, starting to get a little bit more nervous. And then we got the call one day okay, you got to move, move the horses. And what I didn't know at the time and most people didn't know that worked at the ranch is that you move livestock first, which seems obvious now in hindsight. But animals, especially they can't evacuate themselves like you think they can, especially herd animals like horses or cows or anything that's kind of being raised and taken care of by a rancher or a farm animal. So they had us evacuate all of our horses. Now, at that time, the evacuation was very it made a lot of sense because the ranch was engulfed in a cloud of smoke. You could not see 100 feet in front of you. It was so eerie, the amount of smoke that was coming through the valley and just sitting there that you know it felt like nuclear winter. The sunsets were these crazy. You know, the sun during the day was like this crazy orange color you've never seen before and it wasn't pretty, it was just scary. So when the evacuation call came, I think everybody really started to take things seriously. They said, oh my God, this, this is real. And then when the evacuation call came, it happened to be later in the day and by the time we actually started putting horses on trailers it was nighttime. And so the here's the kind of ironic part where you know this, this established, you know, a hundred plus year old guest ranch with 200 horses. We only had one horse trailer because all of our horses live on the ranch year round. We don't ever take them anywhere because their whole life is surrounded by the ranch. Um, they live there year round. They. You know they tough it out through the winter and you know it's their home. We don't need to take them anywhere. The vets come to us. You know they tough it out through the winter and you know it's their home. We don't need to take them anywhere. The vets come to us. You know we, as people, have to hop in a car and go to the doctor's office. Well, we bring the vet to them.
Speaker 3:So when it came time to evacuate all the horses it was, the big question was how are we going to do this? And so our general manager and our senior leadership team and ownership were like what do we do? And so we turned to social media of all places, and we knew we had this great social media following and we put out the bat signal we need help. Basically, can anyone help us with a horse trailer? And we thought maybe we'd get one or two. We had I don't know how many. You know 30, 50 people. We had so many people inquire to help.
Speaker 3:It was a full-time job. I felt like I was manning a command center. We're trying to keep track of them on an Excel spreadsheet. It was a new type of business for us and I'm I'm in the sales department, and so you know I'm used to taking leads and following up, but like we were overwhelmed, it was the most stressful thing ever. Trying to figure out Okay.
Speaker 3:And then so we just start saying yes to the first, however many it was, you know, 20, 30 people, not knowing how big their trailer is, where they're coming from and when they're going to show up. But, lo and behold, people just started showing up with trailers and it was pitch dark, it was cloudy as could be. It felt like an eerie horror movie. And you know, everybody's lights are on with the vehicles and the trailers and we're loading our horses into basically strangers trailers and when I say strangers I mean good samaritans and we're. We're loading these horses into trailers and we're shutting the door and we're doing the pat pat and they drive. You can't see them again. You know what I mean. You know that thought goes through some of the Wrangler's heads like where, hopefully, these horses end up, where we, where we tell them they're supposed to go. And so you know, everybody who showed up obviously was a good Samaritan, doing this out of the kindness of their heart. But each and every one of them, you know, they said where am I taking them? And we were taking them to a neighboring ranch in Grant County and they all got there and so it was a tremendous success just getting them off the ranch.
Speaker 3:And that was kind of phase one. And then, and then the people, they stay and you know everything. You know you could start moving other things off if you want, but we kind of went on to business as usual because the fire wasn't there yet. The smoke was there. It was scary but the fire wasn't there and we still had this like gut feeling that this thing was going to track northeast of us At least I did. Other people on my ranch may have had a different idea of what was going on, but we continued to just go about our business as usual. And then, you know, a few days later it might have even been a full week we got the call and it was like it's coming and it's going to hit you. The winds have just slightly changed. It's going to come over McQuarrie Ridge and into the ranch today.
Speaker 3:Get everything off the property, anything of value that you want to see again. You do have time, you have the whole day. They told us in the morning, but at the time our general manager. He was a volunteer on the firefighters board, which was, ironically, one of the best things he ever did, because we had a direct line of communication with the fire department and a mutual respect and just working relationship where we could have these type of conversations, because when they tell you to evacuate, it's pretty scary and it causes chaos. But when you're in that kind of inner circle and they say, look, you're going to be evacuated in eight hours, let's do this smart. Um, you have a little bit of time. But you know, start, start moving stuff quick. So the ranch quickly packed up. You know art and anything of value saddles, all of our tack, um, you know all this other stuff and then obviously all the people and their belongings that that they thought they needed to take with them, and it was evacuation time and then we left the property and so that was. That was very emotional.
Speaker 3:And then the ranch kind of set up. Uh, um, our owner has a, has a really good friend who has a place over in Tabernash and we set up kind of a mission control center from his house. It was outside of Pole Creek and that's where our senior leadership team was, was working and kind of calling the shots from at that point and then we all just sat and watched Um we, we have some live cameras on the ranch, just like you know, any property these days has like a ski resort, like winter park. So we're watching the live cam later that afternoon and we see the fire come over macquarie ridge and you know, I was watching it live from a distance and it was the scariest thing I'd ever seen. Uh, comes over the ridge, comes down the ridge and it goes right into what we call dexter ridge where there's a bunch of homes and I could have swarmed for the life of me. Those homes were engulfed by the fire and then the fire kept coming towards the camera, which meant it was coming towards the main ranch, and then the cameras went out and it was over.
Speaker 3:We lost, we lost communication at that point, which meant we had no idea what was going to happen. So I was actually having dinner with my parents that night and my family and I was like that's it, it's gone Probably the most sad thing for me, because at that point I had worked at the ranch. Basically my whole life, my whole career as an adult professional, was working at the ranch. I was like everything I've ever worked for it's probably gone. I'm going to wake up tomorrow. It's not going to be here. That's the feeling I went to bed with, which was not a good feeling, and it's choking me up a little right now Wow.
Speaker 3:Lo and behold. You know, that's how we all went to sleep that night, and you know every employee, every.
Speaker 3:You know our owners, our team and you know people. They live and they work there. It's their home too, I mean they live. Most of our staff lives on ranch. With the fire department they reached out to our general manager and even during that night they actually got him on property while the fire was burning. It doesn't burn everywhere all at once and this fire was so fast moving, as you know, that it went through Sea Lazy Ranch in almost an instant and then it kept going all the way to Grand Lake, which is a huge distance. The way the crow flies and the speed of the fire I can get to this a little bit later was actually one of the good things which I can come back to in a bit. But it moved so fast it didn't burn everything, completely, char everything, and it burned what it was going to burn and it moved on. But our GM came in in the middle of the night and did a little surveillance through the back gate, which is a separate entrance, you know, safely, obviously with firefighters, and they kind of surveilled the damage and they they got a count of of you know what we had lost and the homes we had lost, the buildings that were part of the ranch that we had lost and at that point it was all communicated to the rest of the team later the following day.
Speaker 3:But we eventually found out we lost our iconic barn that was built in 1928. And it was just shy of being 100 years old and so that was unfortunate and sorry I'm wrong on that. 1923 is when that barn was built, so it was almost 100 years old. We lost the barn and then we lost two staff, basically cabins or houses, so staff accommodations. We lost one get one cabin, but the rest of the ranch was there and it was like it was a miracle and and I don't want to leave this part out because this is really important to our members Eight member homes were also lost that were were kind of on both sides of the main ranch compound. So there was some some pretty big loss of structure that impacted a lot of people, staff and our members who have homes there and and and and the such. But it was a bit of a miracle at the same time that the ranch didn't burn down, that we didn't lose every building.
Speaker 3:Cause the fire literally went through it, through the ranch.
Speaker 1:It's crazy. It was almost like a tornado kind of how it would hit things too, wasn't it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was just it was coming at such a high speed and looking back, and you know we were doing everything we could to be, you know, these fire experts at the time but we realized that it went really fast to the north of us on day number one and so the cutoff line of what it impacted was actually to the north of the main ranch, but it went right through our Dexter community and then it kept going all the way to Grand Lake. But the fire doesn't stop once it burns through. Once the winds take it through an area, there's still stuff on fire that's smoldering and or burning, and it burned for days and weeks. But that next day the fires, the winds of the fire shifted and instead of blowing to the northeast, all of a sudden it decided to blow to the southeast and that's when it started heading towards Granby, and I'm sure you remember this.
Speaker 1:But I remember it.
Speaker 3:It became. It became a gigantic threat to the town of Granby and many other communities along the way, and that's when it did more damage on ranch, when it swept south of the main ranch compound but in a weird way it kind of went north of us one day and south of us the other and it converged on the other side of the main ranch compound. So that little circle in between that's where all the guest ranch buildings are and that's what is critical to the ranch continuing on as a guest ranch. So it was just this like act of God to let this thing survive and a lot of the homes that were lost and most people, you know, don't have a lot of experience with fire, like myself. But a lot of the homes that were lost were these embers flying through the air and they land on something that could ignite, and so that's how a lot of these homes were lost.
Speaker 3:That's how we lost the barn, Because the actual front force of the barn that came through the ranch it didn't go right through the middle where all the buildings were, Otherwise they'd all be gone. It's these little embers that decided to land on two staff units, one gas cabin and the barn. That's how those started on fire, so it's kind of crazy how all that happened. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, like you said, it's an act of God that the main part of the ranch survived. That would have been such a horrible loss. It was devastating. Survived. That would have been such a horrible loss, it was devastating. And then you guys did something. You worked with this company on doing something that is so creative and different. I never would have thought about making whiskey from burnt aspen trees. How did that? Come about.
Speaker 3:Well, there's a lot to this story and I'll do my best to communicate it. I went to high school with Owen Locke and Rick Talley went to a neighboring high school. But we go way back and these are my friends from way back in the liquor industry and making whiskey and that's his career. And he took a leap of faith at one point in his life and started his own company which is called Lock and Co Distilling, which is his last name, owen Lock, and the way that Lock and Co came about. His family has a long history of distilling whiskey in the state of Colorado which goes way back to the early 1900s, like the ranch. So it's kind of a cool story in that it aligns up with the ranch. But they have an old family cabin here in Colorado and he was up at his family cabin and he was making whiskey and it was kind of in the basement, you know bootlegger type style at the time, and he and he brought some up to the family cabin when he was there just you know, getting away from from Denver, where you know we grew up and where he's from and he said, and he had charred some Aspen because there were Aspen trees all over the cabin and he said I'm just going to drop some of this charred Aspen into my whiskey, put it in the windowsill and let it age and see what happens. And nobody had ever really aged whiskey with aspen before. And in all honesty and I'm I'm paraphrasing and and and using my my memory for this story but he came back, you know, six months later and he forgot about it and he starts tasting this whiskey and he says oh my god, this is good, there's something here. And that was when he said it's time to take the leap of faith. I'm going to start my own company, uh, lock and co distilling, and I'm going to make aspen aged rye. And so what they do is they age it in oak barrels, just like you age traditional whiskey, but then they finish it by putting in charred Aspen and it creates this unbelievable flavor that is just different. Their tagline is taste like none other, because it truly is. It's a whiskey with a taste like none other.
Speaker 3:And so, and through our friend group, I knew he was doing this, and you know we're always looking for cool things to do at the ranch, to partner with. And so five years ago and this is before the fire I just said, hey, oh, and you know, sounds like you're doing something cool why don't you come up to the ranch and do whiskey tastings? That was when you know, the whiskey industry is booming, everybody loves whiskey. Yellowstone's just getting started. And he's like, yeah, let's do it. And so he was coming up to the ranch to showcase his product, to do these complimentary tastings for our guests, to get it out to a larger crowd, and so he did this for a number of years and it was just a really fun addition for our guests on the ranch. And then he kept saying we got to do something together, we got to partner together. There's got to be a reason that COAZU and Locke and Co can come together and create something special. And we never really had something special to frame it around.
Speaker 3:And then all of a sudden we have the East Troublesome Fire. That is just absolutely devastating. But you know what it did? It charred a lot of Aspen trees on the ranch. And so this I wish I could say I'm the one who had the idea, but I did not. But our general manager and our, our Psalm, who's also our bar manager, they came up with this idea like why don't we and and Owen with Lock and Co. They said why don't we throw some charred aspen in a barrel and we'll do a special edition? See, lazy you, aspen Aged Rye based upon the East Troublesome Fire, and like we were all on a phone call, you know, just kind of brainstorming ideas, and everybody unanimously was like yes, it was like it was the biggest no brainer ever.
Speaker 3:We're like, wow, we have a reason and let's, let's make something good come from all the bad that came from the East troublesome fire and so we did it. And so they went out and harvested some Aspen in the snow and this was early in 2023. So it was last year in January, february or March, I forget the exact month. They harvested the charred aspen and they threw it in the barrel and they aged it and we knew we were going to deliver this in early June. We had no idea if it was going to taste good, because he has a technique that he's formulated how he charred the aspen. It's more like it's done in a consistent manner. It's not done by a natural disaster.
Speaker 3:So it's a little bit different of a process with charring the wood, but we threw it in anyways and we said let's see what happens. So our whiskeys age for two years in a barrel, so it had already been aging. We picked that barrel that had already been aging and then we threw our charred aspen into the barrel and then they age it for an additional period of time and then they take that whiskey that had already been aged and what we did is we put it in a port barrel to finish it, because we wanted to give it an even more distinct taste, and port is a little bit sweeter and it kind of mellowed it out a little bit. And then we did some tastings and we were like, oh my God, this is fantastic, it is absolutely wonderful. So we had our barrel, we started selling it, but we labeled it, packaged it for the East Troublesome Fire.
Speaker 3:And then I do need to chime in, this isn't just a for-profit adventure. So Tony Collier, in our bar, our bar manager and our Salmonier, he says and I think it was Owen as well they both said you know, we got to have a charitable component to this. What should we do? You know, we can't just promote the East Troublesome Fire Like we have to give some money back. And so Tony came up with the idea of why don't we give it back to the firefighters that helped save the ranch? And again we're sitting on a phone call or sitting in a conference room and all of us are like, okay, that's it. You know, it was like the easiest decision on earth was like you know, what charity do we give it to? And you know, the fire department is not a charity, obviously, um, but they do accept donations and we said done so. Every bottle sale that we did in 2024, there was a $10 per bottle donation to the East Grand Fire District number one, which was really cool.
Speaker 3:And the reason that that made even more sense and I want to make sure I communicate this is that they were there during the fire, in the middle of the fire, in those crucial kind of first few days and or week, and there were a few buildings we may have lost without their help. They came in to assess the situation and see what we had lost, but at the same time they were putting hotspots out. That probably saved buildings and we know for a fact it saved our patio house because the roof was on fire and we lived with this huge I'd say probably eight foot diameter black circle on top of our patio house until we could get a new roof for about four no, for about 10 months, and it was just a reminder that those guys saved that building and if we would have lost the patio house we would not be able to operate as a guest ranch. You've been there. That's where the pool is, that's where we do lunches every day in the summer, like it's just such an important part of the guest ranch experience.
Speaker 3:So it was extremely. It made extreme sense that these are the guys we need to give the charitable contribution piece back to.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's incredible, so I need to try it. I haven't tried this whiskey. Where can people get it? Just at See Lazy you, or is it available at other places?
Speaker 3:It is so great question. So the way we kicked it off last year, we, you know, we had a limited supply so and we were getting it by the case through the distributor, because you have to follow all the normal liquor laws of Colorado.
Speaker 3:And we were selling it to our members and our guests. And if employees wanted to buy a bottle we'd do that and we obviously gave a lot of bottles away to specific people that helped us through the fire. So you can purchase it on ranch. Now that's a little bit harder for people to do who may be listening to this podcast. So this year we're actually well.
Speaker 3:Last year we had the liquor store in Grand Lake. They had requested that they would be able to carry a case. We didn't have a lot to distribute out to liquor stores, which we did, and they sold out of all of them. But the recent article we had in Sky High News, you'd be surprised. Almost every liquor store in Grand County reached out to Lock Co Distilling and asked them if they could carry it. And we had that discussion recently and we figured out a plan in order to do that, to make sure that we have enough to distribute equally across the county.
Speaker 3:So it will be for sale in select liquor stores in Grand County as well as on ranch this summer with our next batch, and our next batch is going to be it's our duck pond version, so it is a new version and it's actually taken near the duck pond on the ranch and it's in one of our member communities, very close to some of the homes that were lost, and so that's the whole idea is that we're going to be doing a series as we go. So the first harvest was done up at Woodsy, which was our scenic overlook, one of the prettiest places on the ranch, and so this next series will be at the Duck Pond series and then we'll decide where we're going to go after that. But the whole idea is to keep rolling out new additions as we go. But people can certainly purchase it and you know we'll try to get that info out there so that it's a little bit more publicly known for everybody.
Speaker 1:Oh, that'd be great. Well, that'll be my excuse to come out to the ranch Pick up a bottle of whiskey.
Speaker 3:Well, you're always welcome to come out to the ranch and you're certainly welcome to join our, and we have an invite. I've already put you on the list. You don't know this yet, but you will be getting it eventually. We'll be doing our 105th anniversary celebration in July, so we want you to come out to enjoy that, and Lock Co will be there and they'll be doing tasting. So you can definitely taste it on that day, and I'll get you those details later and we'll get you a bottle as well, obviously.
Speaker 1:Oh, I will be there. Well, Brady, thank you so much for sharing your story and telling us about the whiskey. Where can people find out more information about? See Lazy you.
Speaker 3:To our website. It's C letter C, l-a-z-y letter U, ucom C lazy U. All our information is there. I'm not aware of anything with relating to the Lock and Co Aspen age rye on the website, so I'll have to get you some more information on that later. But if you want to learn about the ranch, you can learn about all the fun stuff we do. We are open year round. It's a wonderful guest ranch. It's very family oriented. It's very Grand County it's probably my favorite way to describe it. I'm a native to Colorado and I consider myself a native to Grand County because I've spent almost half my life in Grand County and the other half in Denver and I just love it. It's one of the most beautiful, special places on earth and to have a wonderful guest ranch working operation that people can enjoy is the best way to celebrate what we have to offer.
Speaker 1:Oh, so true. I just I it's a treat to be able to go out there and I was out there for lunch, oh, I guess maybe in March or something and I had the best soup and I've been trying to duplicate it and I just I just have to come back out and have it again. It's so good. We'll have to get.
Speaker 3:We'll have to get you that recipe. That was our old chef, chef Corianch, and he's moved on, but we we just he started his own consulting company, so we're we're very happy for him, but he was an extremely talented chef that was with us for over five years. That that took things to a whole new level, without without losing the amazing ranch flair that we have. But we have a new chef that he just started, actually this week, and he has been. He's worked at some of the finest hotels and restaurants throughout the state of Colorado. We're so excited.
Speaker 3:His name is Ulysses and he is from Acapulco, mexico, and he has learned everything by grinding it out, which I just love. You know he didn't go to the fanciest culinary school. He didn't. He doesn't have the best training in the world, but what he does have is the best on the job training. And when I when I say that it's, you know you become a great chef by working at the little now and Aspen and the Broadmoor and Colorado Springs and the best French restaurant in Vail, I mean he's worked at all these places and you know the reason why you'll love this, gaylene. You know the reason why he's choosing Sea Lazy Ranch for his next career move is because he wants to be in Grand County.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 3:He does not want to be in Vail, he does not want to be in Aspen, and you would think it would be the other way around for such a talented chef. But he's at this point in his career he wants to, he wants to ride his road bike and he wants to go hiking and he wants to be away from the chaos of some of those larger mountain towns, and so it's just a true testament to what we have in Grand County, which is just fabulous.
Speaker 1:Oh, brady, that's great. That warms my heart. Thank you, I think you were interviewing him when I was there. I think I was, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:No, I was, because I walked through the dining room and I felt so bad because I had to go right to another meeting and it gave you a quick wave and I was like and then I went back and you were gone.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the way it goes sometimes, but I really appreciate your time. This was wonderful.
Speaker 3:I'm excited to see you in July and I'm honored to be part of your podcast, oh, thank you Share what we have in Grand County, so it's just an exciting, exciting place and I'm glad the fire is behind us.
Speaker 1:I am too. The community that rallied behind the fire was probably one of the coolest things to come out of it. Yeah, that just shows you the commitment that people have and the dedication in this County. It's pretty wonderful.
Speaker 3:I know and it's, it's kind of it's sad but great to see, I mean, everybody's still rebuilding. It's taking forever. But they're, they're rebuilding, they're not, they're not just leaving. People still want to be there and onto the next phase. You know yes absolutely All right.
Speaker 1:Brady, I know you're trying to head up to the ranch now, so I'll let you go, but I will see you soon.
Speaker 3:Okay, thanks, gaylene. Talk to you soon.
