Flow Down: Tumbleroot Farmhouse Whisky
The mill at El Rancho de Las Golondrinas, a living history museum, photo by Jason Kirkman.
If you follow the Santa Fe River from its headwaters high in the Sangre de Cristos down into the foothills, through McClure Reservoir, past the adobe houses that line Upper Canyon Road, all the way along Patrick Smith Park and under Palace Avenue, you’ll find yourself traversing, as the land flattens, what was once fertile farmland irrigated by abundant acequias, their silver branches flowing north and south from the central trunk of the river.
Continue past the skate park, under the roaring traffic of Saint Francis Drive, and you’ll find the water rushing or trickling or absent altogether, depending on the season and the year. Past the tennis courts of Alto Park, just up the riverbank along the street named for the waters, among the gas stations and houses and dirt side roads, you’ll find the Agua Fria location of Tumbleroot Brewery and Distillery.