Cedar Ridge earns national Distillery of the Year honors

SWISHER - Jeff Quint says many Eastern Iowans might think of Cedar Ridge Winery and Distillery as 'that winery just off the Swisher exit” of Interstate 380 near the Johnson-Linn County border.

Now, they might think something else as Cedar Ridge was named Distillery of the Year by the California-based American Distilling Institute.

The honor was bestowed on April 4 with Cedar Ridge ranking best of 1,300 craft whiskey distilleries across the country, Bill Owens, president of the institute, said in a news release.

'I was absolutely, pleasantly surprised,” said Quint, who, along with his wife Laurie, owns Cedar Ridge, which opened in 2005 at 1441 Marak Road NW in Swisher. 'For the whiskey, we reach from California to Massachusetts, from Canada to the Caribbean. The national award realizes that.”

Cedar Ridge produces wine now sold in Eastern Iowa and in select places in Des Moines, as well as several kinds of whiskey.

The company's three German-made copper stills - where the whiskey is distilled - hold 40, 100 and 200 gallons. Four barrels are produced each day and the business sells about 20,000 cases of whiskey per year. Quint said he hopes to double the daily amount of whiskey produced in the coming year.

'When we opened in 2005, we were one of just a dozen or so new distillers in this country; the word ‘craft' didn't even come along to our industry until years later,” he said in a news release.

Owens said Cedar Ridge rose to the top because of 'the quality of their whiskeys and commitment to grain-to-glass production,” according to a news release.

The most famous of their whiskey is the Cedar Ridge Bourbon Whiskey, Quint said. The distillery won a San Francisco World Spirits Competition gold medal for the corn-based bourbon whiskey, for which the corn comes from Quint's family farm near Winthrop.

'We're surrounded by corn here in Iowa,” Quint said. It just makes sense.”

Another reason Cedar Ridge was named Distillery of the Year is because of the owners' tenacity in staying involved with state legislative issues, Owens said in the release.

Quint continues his fight to change Iowa Code 123, also known as the Iowa Alcoholic Beverage Control Act. A bill, which Quint hopes will pass through the state Legislature in the coming week, would allow distilleries to serve alcohol by the glass on location and eliminate a current 50,000-gallon production cap.

Quint said Cedar Ridge hopes to serve cocktails starting July 1, and he said he hopes locals realize what national distillery organizations do.

'What the locals might not realize is that we sell more products out of state than we sell in state,” he said. 'I would say among craft whiskey, we're becoming known as one of the few true craft whiskeys in the country.”

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