Brandies
All brandy is made from fruit. The best brandies are made from whole, ripe fruit, and nothing else. Our brandies embody these European (and, before prohibition, American) traditions of capturing the freshness and vibrancy of ripe fruit and quite literally distilling its purity.
Wild apple brandy
We’ve been called purists. We don’t think we are, but, if that label is going to be applied, it’s most appropriate for our wild apple brandy. No other expression better embodies our approach to fruit-growing and brandy-making than our wild apple brandy. Apples are one of the most genetically diverse species on the planet, and the idea that the handful of varieties available in your local grocery store represent the variety of flavors that apples can exhibit is almost offensive.
This brandy is our best effort to showcase that diversity. All the apples here are truly wild – grown from seed, unnamed, unsprayed, and, to borrow from Andy Brennan, uncultivated. It takes a tremendous amount of work to, first of all, identify trees that fit the bill. It mostly involves cruising around old mountain towns, hard-to-reach valleys, and farm homesteads, looking for apple trees growing along a fence line or on the edges of wooded lots. Untended trees grow differently than manicured orchard trees – they’re gnarly, crooked, and often a pain to get to. But damn, the payoff is worth it. Most of the apples in this brandy are bitter- and acidic-tasting, and you wouldn’t want to eat them fresh out of hand. And they’re the apples that make the best cider and brandy. We grind and press them, ferment naturally in used oak barrels, and distill the cider twice in our alembic-style pot still. Aged in toasted French oak, this is the purest expression of apple you can find, and there's no other distillery in the country making anything like this.
Fruit: mostly wild apples from seedling trees, and a bit of heirloom fruit grown on unsprayed trees (Stayman, Winesap, Hewe’s Crab, Black Twig, Myer’s Royal Limbertwig, Harrison, and some Kazakh/American hybrids)
Cooperage: 15 gallon toasted French oak
Availability: very limited, fall and winter
Grimes Golden apple brandy
This is a single variety apple brandy – only Grimes Golden apples, largely sourced from old trees growing in our orchard in western Maryland. Grimes is one of the oldest American apple varieties, discovered growing from a seedling in West Virginia around the turn of the 18th century. It was once grown widely in the mid-atlantic, mostly for cider and brandy-making, because the fruit has tremendous sugars and acids, and the tree produces a reliable crop every year. Alas, like a lot of our fruit-growing and spirits-producing traditions, prohibition did a number on this great apple, with thousands of acres of trees destroyed to make way for more insipid varieties. Luckily, a few hundred old trees still stand in our orchard.
Pressed and naturally fermented in used bourbon barrels, the cider is then distilled twice in a alembic-style pot still. The spirit is aged for about a year in a combination of new, charred American oak and toasted French oak barrels. This is a very robust apple brandy that can stand up nicely in any whiskey cocktail, like an old fashioned, but we also enjoy sipping this one slightly chilled on those cool, dark autumn evenings.
Fruit: Grimes Golden apples
Cooperage: 15 gallon toasted French oak and new charred American oak
Availability: currently unavailable (waiting for the next big year for Grimes!)
Cherry brandy
We use Montmorency cherries, one of the oldest sour cherry varieties, with some records dating its origin as far back as the 13th century. The cherries are naturally fermented whole to complete dryness – pits and all – for about a month, and we then double-distill the cherry wine in our alembic-style pot still.
In German-speaking regions, this spirit is known as a kirchwasser, and in French-speaking regions, an eau de vie de cerise. Dry, earthy, and robust, American palates are ready for an authentic cherry brandy.
Fruit: Montmorency cherries
Availability: very limited, late summer, early fall (sold out until 2021)
Pear brandy
“Pears for your heirs.” That’s what we heard when we first started planting pear trees. Pear trees take a long time to start bearing fruit – a decade or more, usually – but the trees can survive for hundreds of years. So, as the saying goes, you’re really planting pears not for this lifetime, but for future generations. Ironically, pears themselves are ripe for a fleetingly short period of time. Distilling them into an eau de vie, or “water of life,” is a way to capture the vibrancy and freshness of perfectly ripe fruit.
While we wait for our pear trees to grow and mature, we use Bartletts grown in Pennsylvania by our friends at Frecon Farms. In Europe, Bartletts are known as Williams pears, and there’s a long tradition of distilling them into an eau de vie because the character of a ripe Bartlett pear carries through into the spirit unlike all other pears. A ripe pear is a delicate thing, and this brandy no less so.
Fruit: Almost entirely Bartletts, with some wild, foraged pears thrown in for good measure
Availability: late fall, early winter
Aged pear brandy
Pears can be fickle. Some pears ripen over a period (it seems) of hours after they’re picked from the tree. Other pears prefer to take their time – hard as a rock for weeks, even months, and only then do they develop into something spectacular.
That’s the case with our aged pear brandy. It’s made entirely from Bosc pears, an heirloom European variety that, because of its thick skin, grows well in our humid, insect-laden mid-Atlantic environment. And like the fruit itself, the spirit takes some time to fully develop. While we waited, we relied on the help of toasted French oak barrels, which coaxed out the character and subtle complexity of the fruit. This is a brandy for special occasions, on a cold night by the fire, and when we celebrate the passing of the seasons.
Fruit: Almost entirely Bosc
Cooperage: 15 gallon toasted French oak
Age: 2.5 years
Availability: very limited, available starting late 2022
Whiskeys
Rye whiskey
Maryland rye whiskey, as a unique and distinct product, has a long history. The problem is, the history is a little murky, and our reading of it even more so. How is Maryland rye different from Pennsylvania rye, or Monongahela rye? Was George Washington making anything similar to what we know today as rye whiskey? How can a three-chamber still, introduced more than 200 years after rye whiskey had first been made in the region, define the style? We’re not really sure, so we fall back on what we know.
Our approach to our rye whiskey reflects our approach to making spirits – use the best ingredients we can get, treat them properly and carefully, and transform them into a spirit that reflects the place, the moment, and the people of our community. That means sourcing our rye and malted barley from farms in Maryland, grown by farmers we know. We sour the mash, distill it twice through a pot still, and then age the spirit in charred, new American oak barrels. It’s “young,” in the sense that Kentucky would like you to believe, but Maryland rye is meant to be young. It all starts and ends in Maryland. That, to us, is Maryland rye whiskey.
Mashbill: roughly 2/3 rye, 1/3 malted barley
Cooperage: 15 gallon charred new American oak
Age: Generally 12-15 months, though sometimes closer to 2 years
Availability: year-round
Spelt whiskey
Spelt, closely related to wheat, is one of the oldest varieties of grain still cultivated. Often used for bread-making, spelt used to be a common grain for making beer and spirits in Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands. Growing spelt requires much less fertilizer than a typical hard red wheat, which appeals to our fruit-growing philosophy of using fewer inputs.
The flavor profile of our spelt whiskey is softer than the rye, with a little more fruit on the nose and front of the palate, and a dry finish. Incredibly unique.
Mashbill: roughly 2/3 spelt, 1/3 malted barley
Cooperage: 15 gallon charred new American oak
Age: 12-15 months
Availability: limited; first release fall 2020
Warthog wheat whiskey
Warthog, though not considered an ‘heirloom’, is a particularly flavorful variety of wheat. Bakers love working with this variety of hard winter wheat because of that quality, but it also grows fantastically well in our humid mid-Atlantic environment, generally with no need for chemical inputs. The Warthog wheat used in this whiskey comes from a nearby farm in Maryland that shares our philosophy about minimal intervention, and this whiskey shines like no other.
Soft and gentle on the palate, with a whisper of fruit redolent of delicate berries on the nose, this wheat whiskey makes for a superb sipper, neat. It’s also incredibly versatile in cocktails, partly from the malted barley comprising the balance of the mashbill. Smooth, all the way from the field to the bottle.
Mashbill: roughly 2/3 warthog wheat, 1/3 malted barley
Cooperage: 15 gallon charred new American oak
Age: 12-15 months
Availability: limited; first release fall 2022
Gins
Dutch-style gin
The Dutch word for juniper is jenever (pronounced yuh NAY ver, or, depending on where you’re at in Belgium, zhuh NEÉ ver), which is why we call gin, gin. The Dutch (who argue with Belgians about this) first started making a juniper-based spirit in the 1500s, which evolved into the modern, London-style dry gins we know today. Those gins start with a base of vodka. Since vodka (or “neutral spirits,” as you’ll often see on labels of this type) is flavorless, all of the flavor is coming from the botanical mix in the London-style.
Our version of gin is more similar to those early Dutch iterations, heavy on the grain character from the rye and barley spirit base, and simply flavored with a botanical mix of juniper, coriander seed, and angelica root. Since this spirit begins with rye and malted barley grains, their character carries through because we produce something akin to an unaged whiskey first, which we then flavor with our botanicals. If we’re being technical, this is an oude jenever, or old jenever, which refers to the style rather than any aging. But, because a lot of spirits were traditionally stored in oak barrels, it’s common to find aged versions of jenevers in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Mashbill: 2/3 rye, 1/3 malted barley
Botanicals: juniper, coriander seed, angelica root
Availability: year-round
Barrel-finished dutch-style gin
Very simple. We age our Dutch-style gin in charred American oak barrels. The federal government tells us that we can’t say “aged,” or imply any barrel aging, on our labels, so we call this a barrel-finished gin, whatever that means.
This is aged, variously, in new charred oak barrels and once-used barrels. The char contributes the color and that familiar whiskey character, and the botanicals mellow on the finish into what we describe as mint, and maybe almost menthol.
Mashbill: 2/3 rye, 1/3 malted barley
Botanicals: juniper, coriander seed, angelica root
Cooperage: 15 gallon charred new and used American oak
Age: 6 to 9 months
Availability: limited
Foraged citrus gin
This is truly a modern American gin – it combines the character of our Dutch-style gin, simply made in a copper pot still, with locally foraged citrus fruit and rosemary, grown by our friends at New Brooklyn Farms. The result is a drier, crisper gin perfectly suited for warm weather and gin & tonics on the patio.
The only cold-hardy citrus fruit that grows in the Mid-Atlantic is the trifoliate orange (Poncirus trifoliata). Often referred to as bitter orange, the small fruits are packed with seeds, which makes juicing them problematic – the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze, as they say. But in a gin, the aromatic oils found in the skin provide a gentle, rustic citrus profile that complements the spice of our rye-based gin spirit. The tree also makes a great hedge because of the three-inch thorns on its limbs, which we bravely battled to harvest these unique fruit.
Mashbill: 2/3 rye, 1/3 malted barley
Botanicals: juniper, trifoliate orange, rosemary, coriander seed, angelica root
Availability: year-round
Liqueurs & Bottled Cocktails
Coffee liqueur
Coffee liqueurs can be very simple – coffee, a spirit, and some sugar. They can be dull and one-noted, but they can also be incredibly complex, depending on the provenance of those three ingredients.
So that’s why we use an Ethiopian-grown Yirgacheffe coffee, called Natty Cheffe, from our friends at Vigilante Coffee Co. This coffee is “naturally processed” – that is, the coffee cherry is harvested at peak ripeness and is then left to dry with the fruit surrounding the seeds still intact. This process and the light roast let the quality of the beans shine through in the cup, evoking notes of blueberry, pecan, and brown sugar.
The spirit component is an unaged version of our rye whiskey, made from Maryland-grown rye and malted barley. The whiskey brings some pepper, chocolate, vanilla and biscuit notes. The maple syrup, aged in our used rye whiskey barrels, provides a more layered balance of sweetness.
Have it with dessert (maybe chocolate cake? Tiramisu?), use it for your White Russian, or (and we can’t recommend this enough) get your morning started on the right foot.
Availability: limited, generally fall-winter
negroni
The Negroni is a fantastic year-round cocktail – a balance of bitterness and sweetness with a botanical backbone. Our take on the classic recipe uses (mostly) equal parts of our dutch-style gin, dry vermouth, and bitter Italian liqueur. In the warmer months, we swap out our dutch-style gin with our foraged citrus gin. It's a little more dry, and the citrus seems to better suit those longer, sunnier days. We use dry vermouth because our gins bring a good deal of sweetness from the rye and malt base, and we increased the proportion of gin slightly so it shines through. Chill it, serve it over ice, and garnish with an orange peel. Each bottle contains about four 3-ounce cocktails (plus an extra splash for the bartender).
the big apple
One of the most popular cocktails in our tasting room is a Manhattan made with our wild apple brandy. We do the hard part of balancing the apple brandy, vermouth, and bitters in the proper proportions. All you need to do is chill it, give it a slight shake, and garnish with whatever you’d like (we recommend a brandied cherry, orange peel, or both). Each bottle contains about four 3-ounce cocktails (plus an extra splash for the bartender).