Honest Hands Ring Co. is teaming up with a Colorado whiskey legend in a special promotion that builds and celebrates brand loyalty by both partners’ customers.
This month, Honest Hands—based in Morrison, Colo., outside Denver—and Stranahan’s Colorado Single Malt Whiskey debuted a sweepstakes where three lucky winners will receive a private distillery tour and tasting and a custom piece of jewelry. People can enter online through Aug. 31.
The grand prize’s jewelry, created by Honest Hands founder Benjamin Bosworth in collaboration with Stranahan’s, is an exclusive 10k gold ring inlaid with a stave from a historic whiskey barrel. A stave is one of the narrow wooden planks that form the barrel’s sides, typically fashioned out of oak.
Each sweepstakes winner will hand-select a barrel stave for their ring from Stranahan’s rackhouse (where barrels are kept while the whiskey is aging) during the distillery tour.
Honest Hands specializes in custom rings, like the ones that will be awarded in its sweepstakes with Stranahan’s Whiskey.
“We’re really similar as brands—both of us started in our respective garages, and we’re both experiencing a lot of growth,” Bosworth says of his partner Stranahan’s. “When people think of companies making things locally, Denver might not pop up top of mind, but we’re cool brands partnering together to build something special.”
There also is a Midwest connection between the two companies. Bosworth, a Michigan native, and Stranahan’s head distiller Justin Aden are both alums of Michigan State University—Bosworth studied engineering at MSU, Aden majored in microbiology and molecular genetics.
Stranahan’s has a lot of “diehard fans,” Bosworth says, who are known locally for lining up outside the distillery to purchase whiskey, especially for limited releases like Snowflake. The Honest Hands/Stranahan’s collab was planned for about a year and a half, says Bosworth, but he was looking for the right time within his business and its development to pull the trigger.
“We had to dedicate the time to make this project happen from a manufacturing standpoint,” says Bosworth. “Oak has such intricate patterns in it that we needed to develop a process to make a seamless design for the ring. That way it looks like the wood is continuous all of the way around.”
The Honest Hands ring to be given as the sweepstakes’ grand prize is made with a stave from a whiskey barrel and engraved with Stranahan’s name.
Honest Hands is laser-engraving Stranahan’s logo on the inside of the special rings, to give winners an additional memory from their favorite whiskey brand. Bosworth hopes the sweepstakes rings become heirlooms, and he’s proud that his company can provide the craftsmanship the white oak staves from Stranahan’s deserve.
“You need that level of precision that allows us to sandwich it between the gold,” he explains. “The devil is always in the details, because you also have to select the right stave. Oak has these cool horizontal and diagonal lines. If you cut it the right way, you can get more of that character.”
For the sweepstakes winners, the Honest Hands oak-inlaid gold band gives Stranahan’s fans another artisan-crafted item to love. “We want them to be really proud and happy to wear it,” Bosworth says. “We don’t take this super fandom lightly, and we really want to deliver the right product.”
Top: A wood-inlaid gold band by Honest Hands Ring Co. similar to those that are part of the three grand prizes in Stranahan’s Colorado Single Malt Whiskey’s sweepstakes (photos courtesy of Honest Hands)