Salted Roots began as simple kitchen experiments and quickly grew into one of Utah’s most talked-about small-batch food brands. Founder Ivy Watrous has been cooking since childhood, blending bold flavors with careful technique. Today, her handcrafted salts and sugars are showing up in farmers markets, home kitchens, and even cocktail menus — each one shaped by personal stories, long hours, and a commitment to doing things the hard way when it matters.

Cold Case Ice Cream is delivering more than dessert. With high-butterfat, inclusion-packed flavors and a built-in mystery game inside every six-pack, the Utah-born company is gaining national attention and gearing up for major production growth.

Utah’s craft whiskey scene is shaped by more than grain, yeast, and time. The state’s dry climate plays an unusually powerful role in how spirits age, intensifying the relationship between whiskey and the barrels that hold it.

Low humidity accelerates evaporation during aging, often claiming 14–18 percent of a barrel’s contents as the “angel’s share.” Unlike more humid regions where alcohol evaporates faster, Utah barrels tend to lose more water, concentrating flavor and driving proof upward over time. That accelerated interaction pulls sugars, tannins, and spice from the wood more quickly, creating whiskeys that often taste older and more structured than their age statements suggest.

To understand how Utah distillers are deliberately harnessing climate, char, and finishing barrels to shape flavor, two producers at the forefront of that experimentation — Sugar House Distillery and Spirits of the Wasatch — shared how barrel choices influence everything from sweetness and spice to texture and proof.

*The remainder of this article is available to Utah Stories subscribers and includes in-depth reporting from Utah distillers on barrel selection, aging techniques, and experimental finishes.

Most people assume Utah is the strictest state in the nation for alcohol. One small importer discovered the opposite—and uncovered a legal quirk that gives Utah more freedom than the rest of the country. Her journey explains how