ESTES PARK • In the lower level of one of Colorado’s most famous hotels, at the end of a hallway across from a secret tunnel, strangers sit around a narrow table in a narrow, warmly lit room. A host stands at the head of the table.

“We’re gonna have some fun,” he says.

The whiskey tasting begins in The Vault at The Stanley.

The intimate room is so named for the safe here that kept banknotes of guests early in the hotel’s history, which dates to 1909. Now The Vault keeps exclusive whiskey — hundreds of bottles found only here in the bowels of this storied place in the mountains.

Of course, The Stanley is most storied for its haunted reputation, its inspiration for Stephen King’s “The Shining.” The Vault has been billed as “a collection of The Stanley’s other spirits (only available here at the hotel).”

McShan Walker has done the collecting alongside his best friend, Ollie. The dog is often greeting guests here. He’s otherwise seen pictured in some of the bottle labels.

“He’s settled into his role as chief marketing officer,” Walker says.

The Vault concept sprung from the restaurant and bar directly above, on the hotel’s main floor. Cascades has long claimed one of Colorado’s largest whiskey selections. The menu spanned 15 pages at last visit, listing nations and distilleries big and small and whiskey ages ranging up to nearly half a century. (Not to mention pours ranging up to $999.)

“This was the place you would come for a whiskey,” Walker says down in The Vault. “Our goal here was to have something that was even more unique.”

The local longtime distiller and the hotel’s longtime owner, John Cullen, shared the goal to acquire special barrels from worldwide producers. Barrels might yield dozens of bottles or hundreds of bottles. And all would be sold at The Vault — or poured during weekend tastings.

The host this evening starts with an Irish whiskey aged 10 years. The maker is Bushmills — “the oldest operating distillery in the world going back to 1608,” the host notes. He adds a reminder, for good measure: “This is exclusive to The Stanley.”

As is the following rye whiskey, which is followed by a bourbon, which is followed by a single-malt whiskey aged in a sherry wine cask, which is followed by a bourbon aged in an orange wine cask. With every sip comes a quick tip or history lesson.

A tip, for example: Add a drop of water to tone down whiskey’s notorious burn, separating the alcohol and thus drawing out flavors such as caramel, vanilla and butterscotch. History lessons include Col. Edmund Haynes Taylor, a Kentucky bourbon man who pushed for the 1897 Bottled-in-Bond Act, which led to government authenticity labels on bottles. Here in The Vault, one of those labels is seen on a bottle from 1914.

The host asks three questions at the end of an hour: Did you learn something new? Did you find something you enjoyed? Did you have fun? The strangers reply “yes” to all. And the strangers don’t feel like strangers anymore. One proposes a bottle to share.

Walker has always thought this to be the ultimate power of whiskey: “This thing is a relationship builder.”

And recurring in stories, he says — including the story of Estes Park.

Walker points to a tale told by Lord Dunraven, an Irish aristocrat who ventured to this valley in 1872. He is infamous in local lore for shadily acquiring land and selling it, including the hilltop where The Stanley would be built.

Well before then, Dunraven recalled “the commencement of civilization” in Estes Park with the appearance of a man atop a donkey.

“He was the first stranger I had ever seen in the park,” Dunraven wrote. “After surveying me in silence for some moments, he observed, ‘Say, is this a pretty good place to drink whiskey in?’”

“Yes,” Dunraven replied.

Yes, The Stanley aims to be the best place. As strangers learn down in The Vault.

“The number of people I see walking around as pals after they showed up to do a random whiskey tasting,” Walker says. “It’s a good reward.”