Most whiskey names are invented in a room. Somebody sketches a frontier word, adds a family surname that may or may not belong to anyone, and prints it on a label designed to look older than the company is.
Ours is a dog. A real one.
Hoover’s Revenge is named for Hoover, a coonhound who belonged to Marble Distilling co-founders Connie Baker and Carey Shanks. Hoover lost an eye in a run-in with a mountain lion and spent the rest of his life, as far as anyone could tell, trying to settle the score. The whiskey carries his name in his memory.
That is the whole answer. The rest of this is the part that doesn’t fit on a shelf tag.
Who was Hoover?
Hoover was a coonhound and the distillery dog at Marble Distilling Co. in Carbondale, Colorado. He belonged to Connie Baker — Marble’s co-founder and head distiller — and co-founder Carey Shanks.
Somewhere in the course of an ordinary Colorado dog’s life, Hoover met a mountain lion. He lost the eye. He did not, by all accounts, lose the argument in any way that mattered to him.
What followed was a career. As Baker has described it, his mission in life was to put giant cats up in trees. A one-eyed hound with a grudge and a good nose, working the hills above the Crystal River, decided that the correct response to being maimed by an apex predator was to go looking for more of them.
Hoover has since passed. When Marble released its first whiskey, Baker put it plainly: Hoover’s Revenge is in memory of our distillery dog, Hoover.
The short version: A one-eyed coonhound decided a mountain lion owed him something. The whiskey is named after the collection effort.
Why name a whiskey after a dog with a grudge?
Because it was true, and because it fit what was in the barrel.
There is a particular kind of stubbornness required to start a distillery in a town of six thousand people at 6,400 feet, build it to recapture its own process water and reuse its own distillation energy, and then insist on aging whiskey slowly in a place where almost nothing about the climate cooperates. Marble is family-and-friends owned and operated. It is female-led. It has spent over a decade proving a point that a great many people in the spirits industry considered optional.
A dog who lost an eye and went back out looking for the thing that took it is not a bad mascot for that.
There’s also the simple matter of honesty. Marble’s grain is Colorado-grown. The water comes from the Crystal River watershed. The stills are copper pot stills. When the whole operation is built on this is actually where it comes from, inventing a heritage surname for the label would have been the one dishonest thing in the building.
What’s actually in the Hoover’s Revenge bottles
The name covers a family of Colorado whiskeys, all made from Colorado grain and Crystal River water, all aged in new 53-gallon American Oak casks, all bottled numbered and signed.
Hoover’s Revenge Fightin’ Whiskey — 101 proof
Marble’s most unusual bottle, and the one that most deserves the name. Fightin’ Whiskey is made from triticale, a hybrid of wheat and rye developed in the 19th century and grown today mostly as a hardy livestock feed. Almost nobody distills it.
It’s a limited edition, aged a minimum of two years in new American Oak, released as a single cask with bottles numbered and signed. Bottled at 101 proof / 50.5% ABV. $80 for 750ml.
Whisky Advocate has reviewed it. Triticale gives you the spice architecture of rye with a rounder, breadier body underneath — it fights you a little, which is presumably how it got the name.
Hoover’s Revenge Ragged Mountain Rye — 92 proof
Named for Ragged Mountain, northeast of Carbondale. Ragged Mountain Rye is a limited edition rye aged a minimum of three years in new 53-gallon American Oak, released as a single cask, numbered and signed. 92 proof / 46% ABV. $70 for 750ml.
This is the expression Whisky Advocate pointed to when it first told the Hoover story in print, back in January 2020.
Silver Label Whiskey — 84 proof
Worth knowing about, and worth not confusing with the above. Silver Label sits alongside Hoover’s Revenge rather than under it. It was Marble’s first attempt at marrying several single casks together rather than bottling them individually — each 53-gallon American Oak cask hand-selected and tasted for what it would bring to the blend.
Aged a minimum of two years, bottled at 84 proof, numbered and signed. $55 for 750ml. It’s the most approachable door into Marble’s whiskey.
Across the full range of spirits, Marble has won more than 40 awards.
Quick reference:
· Fightin’ Whiskey — triticale, 101 proof / 50.5%, min. 2 years, single cask, $80
· Ragged Mountain Rye — rye, 92 proof / 46%, min. 3 years, single cask, $70
· Silver Label — married casks, 84 proof, min. 2 years, $55
What 6,400 feet does to a barrel
Carbondale sits at 6,400 feet. That is not a detail Marble mentions for atmosphere.
Air pressure is lower up here and the daily temperature swing is wider than it is at sea level. Barrels breathe harder. The whiskey moves in and out of the wood more aggressively, and the angels take a larger cut. High-elevation distillers generally find that spirit interacts with oak faster than the Kentucky playbook predicts — which is why a Colorado whiskey with a modest age statement can taste older than its paperwork suggests, and why the ones that do sit for a long stretch up here become genuinely scarce.
It also means single cask releases behave like single cask releases. Two barrels filled the same week, sitting in the same rickhouse, will not end up in the same place. Marble bottles them separately and numbers them for exactly that reason. If you want to see where it all happens without leaving your chair, there’s a virtual tour of the distillery.
Where to drink it
The most direct route is Club Marble, the tasting room at 150 Main Street in Carbondale, where you can taste the range side by side and work out whether you’re a rye person or a triticale person. The distillery is on Main Street in the middle of town — the same block as everything else in Carbondale.
If you want the whole thing, The Inn at Marble Distilling has rooms above the distillery. Whisky Advocate has included Marble on its list of scenic whisky distilleries where you can spend the night.
For people who get properly interested in single cask whiskey, the Barrel Club is the version of this with your name on a barrel.
And if you’re not in the Roaring Fork Valley, the store locator will tell you who stocks Marble near you, or you can order directly.
The point of the name
Craft distilling has a naming problem. A great many bottles are dressed in borrowed history — invented founders, fake establishment dates, typefaces doing the work the liquid should be doing.
Marble went the other way and named its whiskey after a one-eyed dog who wouldn’t let something go.
It’s a smaller story than a fake dynasty. It has the advantage of being true.
Frequently asked questions
Why is Marble Distilling’s whiskey called Hoover’s Revenge?
It’s named for Hoover, a coonhound belonging to co-founders Connie Baker and Carey Shanks. Hoover lost an eye to a mountain lion and spent the rest of his life pursuing them. The whiskey is named in his memory.
Was Hoover a real dog?
Yes. Hoover was Marble Distilling’s distillery dog in Carbondale, Colorado. He has since passed away.
What whiskeys are sold under the Hoover’s Revenge name?
Fightin’ Whiskey (triticale, 101 proof) and Ragged Mountain Rye (92 proof) are the core expressions. Marble also produces Silver Label Whiskey (84 proof), a separate line of married single casks.
What is Fightin’ Whiskey made from?
Triticale — a wheat-and-rye hybrid grain rarely used in distilling. It’s aged a minimum of two years in new 53-gallon American Oak and bottled at 101 proof (50.5% ABV) as a numbered single cask release.
What is Ragged Mountain Rye?
A limited edition Colorado rye aged a minimum of three years in new 53-gallon American Oak, bottled at 92 proof (46% ABV) as a numbered and signed single cask release. It’s named for Ragged Mountain, northeast of Carbondale.
Where is Marble Distilling located?
150 Main Street, Carbondale, Colorado, at 6,400 feet in the Roaring Fork Valley. The distillery, Club Marble and The Inn share the building.
Does altitude affect whiskey aging?
Yes. Lower air pressure and wider daily temperature swings at 6,400 feet make barrels breathe more actively, increasing spirit-wood interaction and evaporation compared with lower-elevation aging.
Where can I buy Hoover’s Revenge whiskey?
Through Marble’s online shop, at the distillery in Carbondale, or via retailers listed on the store locator. Releases are limited single casks, so availability varies.
Marble Distilling Co. — 150 Main Street, Carbondale, Colorado. Best Taste. Zero Waste. Please enjoy responsibly. 21+.
