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Coming out from winter hiding…
March 26, 2012 / Comments (0)
In truth we had absolutely nothing to complain about this winter – unless of course you were an avid cross country skiing fan – in which case it was a bit of a bust. We spent the month of February wandering about in France visiting distillers of Eaux de Vie and Calvados and taking marvelous…
And the winner is….
June 29, 2011 / Comments (1)
…us! Our designer Stephen Bishop, the man responsible for the simple, sleek design of our logo and elegance of our packaging has been officially recognised by winning two prestigious, national design awards for his work with us. In May he won the 2011 Applied Arts Design Award for Best Packaging of Wine, Beer or Spirits…
And now for a little old cognac…
April 24, 2011 / Comments (0)
Only in Portland you say? At the conference we made the acquaintance of a talented and very knowledgable young bartender, Jonah Kobayashi, who held court every night at the Benson Hotel’s lovely old wood paneled bar. He was a cornucopia of information on all things alcohol related and made the creation of a Spanish…
Springtime in Oregon – Part 2
April 09, 2011 / Comments (0)
Then there’s Edgefield – the place where we encountered McMenamin’s establishment and all that entails. It’s a massive operation with numerous restaurants, bars and hotels in the NW USA. At Edgefield Farm which houses a winery, a brewery and a distillery as well as a hotel & spa, every bit of product created is sold…
Springtime in Portland Oregon – Part 1
Way back in the depths of February we booked ourselves into attending the American Distilling Institute’s annual convention. This year’s topic was Brandy – so it seemed appropriate – plus it was being held in Portland Oregon which has arguably the hottest, fastest growing artisan distilling community in the States. Add to that the…
Our newly adopted Apple Idol
March 17, 2011 / Comments (0)
Pierre found this little guy in one of the many bins (30!) of apples they processed at Boates Farm on Tuesday. We’re not certain where he came from – who the artist was – maybe one of the folks at Van Meekeren farms who supply the apples thought the little double apple was cute and…
Ironwork’s Animals: Part One – The Dog Goes all Broadway on us…
It’s possible that you have all noticed the presence of our animals in some of the photos on our website. For no better reason than the fact that it’s a grey rainy March day and I need a break from the frustration of making labels, I thought it would be amusing to tell you some…
Looking back and thinking ahead
February 22, 2011 / Comments (1)
Must be February – I find myself battling insomnia by cleaning out my email inbox at ungodly hours of the night. In so doing I came across an amusing interchange that I had back in early June last year, when we were in the throes of first bottling and dead terrified that the labels would…
More Fellow Distillers
January 30, 2011 / Comments (0)
Busy times on the road. We jumped from Catoctin Creek in Virginia on Thursday to Thomas Tew Distillery in Newport, Rhode Island yesterday. It’s great fun to see how the rest of our fellow distillers go about the solving of tasks that we’re so familiar with. Everyone so far is a lot bigger than we…
Dashing around the north-east
January 27, 2011 / Comments (0)
We traveled through the heart of thoroughbred country in the last few days. Kentucky is so delightful with it’s rolling hills and endless white fencing. One of the highlights was visiting the home of Maker’s Mark Bourbon. It’s a large facility – I think our shop and workroom would fit entirely in their visitor centre…
