Cedar Ridge Winery and Distilltery was founded in 2005 by Jeff Quint and family. They released their first bourbon in 2010 and have gradually expanded to include rum, gin and fruit brandy. Yet their main focus remains whiskey, as is evidenced from their almost dozen different offerings. The distillery’s first American single malt was released in 2020, the QuintEssential. Besides being a smart play on the family name, this single malt makes use of the other aspects of the business and involves a complex aging and finishing process involving 20 different types of casks, a solera system, and a mixture of peated and unpeated malt from Canada. While looking to Scotland for inspiration, Cedar Ridge also embraces the exploratory nature of craft distilling in America and future releases of the QuintEssential promise to continue pushing boundaries.
Distillery: Cedar Ridge
Region: Foreign
Age: NAS
Strength: 46%
Price: $53.00
Maturation: It’s complicated
Location: Swisher, IA
Nose: Cold apple pie, tart apple, hazelnut, must, peat, cereal, raisin, prune, rye, creamsicle, minced pie, St. John’s wort
Palate: Creamed honey, orange, fig
Finish: Orange, menthol, peat
Comments: We highly recommend checking out the maturation link above. Another great read (and creation map) is an interview with Jeff Quint done by Taylor from Malt.
Adam – I love the ambition of this single malt. Reading the process of how this whiskey came to be is like gazing on an MC Escher work. It doesn’t always make sense when you look at it, but the results speak for themselves. This is a delightfully complex dram to sip and ponder, especially for those like us who like to pull apart the different threads of what makes a whiskey. For better or for worse, having such a great multitude of component means identifying a great many of them becomes impossible. However, that still doesn’t mean the QuintEssential isn’t an incredibly satisfying single malt, especially for the price. The nose shines the most for me, I think, because of how all over the map it is, but the sweetness and fruit of the palate transition into a finish that includes a sigh of peat. While it feels sort of like an experiment, it also feels at times like they’re trying almost too much. I wonder if honing in on a few elements might provide some clarity. I look forward to finding out.
Meghan – The QuintEssential is like the local mid-westerner version of a fancy dish they’ve only ever seen a picture of but don’t actually know how to cook. It feels like they’re messing around before they have their foundations set.
It’s like the smell of Lazarus, fresh from the tomb.
Ben – My mouth waters when I smell it. This smells like you had a party, a pre-Christmas party, and this is the smell in your house the morning after. It’s hard to define on the tongue. It’s even. This thing died and someone brought it back to life. It’s not fresh. It’s like the smell of Lazarus, fresh from the tomb.
Kate – This is a nose I have to work for. There are smells but you have to work to identify them clearly. I get rye, creamed honey, and a hint of citrus. The taste for me is initially spicy and hot then fading to that creamed honey flavour. The finish is fairly short and leaves the essence of peat. It seems like a highly charged but stable molecule. There’s a lot going on and it is all moving quickly so it takes time to dissect.
Henry – Lots going on here. The nose is a real holiday buffet. Flaky crust baked apple pie, spicy mulled wine, raisins, dates, hazelnut torte. Juicy fruit on the palate fading to creamsicle. A hint of peat enters on the finish. There’s a lot going on here. Almost too much. This is the Rube Goldberg device of whiskey.
Kristin – I like the QuintEssential. I like the fruitiness and it drinks easy.
