Tasting notes

nose

Caramel, vanilla and kettle corn, with white pepper and fresh oak

palate

Rich caramel and rye bread, blackberry and cherry, then cereal grain, corn oil and a sharp peppery bite

finish

Long; creamed corn and charred oak with burnt vanilla bean and white pepper, fading to stone fruit and nuts

Mash bill

69% corn, 19% Danko rye, 12% malted barley. Every grain is certified organic, grown without GMOs, synthetic fertilizers or pesticides on farms in New Hampshire, Maine and upstate New York that the distillery buys from directly. The mash goes into the first distillation with the grain still in, and it is made with water that runs off Mount Washington, which the distillery leaves unfiltered to keep its minerals.

Why it's craft

Cathedral Ledge mashes, ferments, pot-distills, ages and hand-bottles this bourbon in a timber-frame barn in North Conway, and is New Hampshire's only USDA-certified organic distillery. It can trace the grain in every batch back to the farm it came from, and it adds no coloring or flavoring. Christopher Burk and his wife opened the distillery in December 2020 and began distilling bourbon in 2021, so this bonded bottling comes from some of the earliest bourbon the house made.