Kraig Weaver

Owner/Founder, AND collaborative

Denver

Kraig Weaver is the owner/founder of AND collaborative, a design and fabrication company specializing in metal and wood furniture, railings, doors, shelving, etc. Kraig is also co-owner/co-founder of The Block Distilling Co., a distillery creating boundary pushing spirits ranging from gin and vodka to barrel aged spirits like whiskey and brandy. Both companies proudly call Denver their home.

Most of his life Kraig battled whether the right brain or left brain should dominate. In high school he took as many art classes as possible (where sculpture meant building scale models of his furniture designs) but was also taking physics and calculus. He attended Colorado School of Mines and graduated with a degree in engineering but was also the president of the art club on the campus that had zero art classes. After graduating he worked under his degree for a large, corporate company in downtown Denver. After 5 years the lack of a creative outlet had caused a void in motivation for the job. To battle this, AND was conceived and the "big boy" job was left behind. AND gave a balance of using the right brain to design and left brain to build. Then through contacts made from fabrication jobs, the distillery concept was born. The Block Distilling Co. demands mechanical knowledge to run the equipment that creates the spirits but requires an artful mindset in the recipe development of those spirits. Between these companies, Kraig has found a balance of the brain and in result also recovered the ambition that was missing.