Updated August 16, 2010

Holiday Closures

Clear Creek Distillery will be closed Monday, September 6, 2010, in celebration of Labor Day.

Mostly we are just trying to survive the heat here in Portland, Oregon, this week.  Imagine standing next to a steamy still all day while it is 95 degrees outside.

Cherries!   A few weekends ago we crushed 25,000 pounds of dark, beautiful Bing cherries, which have been fermenting ever since.  Some of that fermented cherry mash has already been distilled and it is beautiful.  We are very excited about this year's Kirsch.  We will distill more this week.  This is the first year we have made a Kirschwasser that is Kosher.  The rabbi will be here this week overseeing  Kirschwasser production.  It will be available for purchase this Fall.   Here is the first Kosher for Passover Kirschwasser being distilled at Clear Creek Distillery.  Both the cherry aroma and taste are lovely.

Distilling

We are distilling Kosher Kirschwasser this week.

Next we will distill Scotch wash for the McCarthy's Oregon Single Malt Whiskey .

Bottling

We are preparing to bottle the current batch of Kirschwasser once we are done distilling it.  Oregon Cranberry Liqueur is next.

Featured Item: Blackberry Liqueur

We are very pleased with our recent bottling of Blackberry Liqueur.  It is the quintessential Northwest summertime  fruit and we have perfectly captured that sweet and wild flavor. 

We are not the only ones who think it is wonderful.  It was recently included in this article on Blackberry Brambles by Toni Cecchini in a New York Times blog.

PRODUCTS OUT OF STOCK

McCarthy's Single Malt Whiskey is sold out from the distillery.  Every drop we have is still aging in barrels.  Although you can't buy a bottle here, there are many good retailers that still have McCarthy's on their shelves.  Check out our where to buy page to find a bottle near you.

Our next bottling is scheduled for November 2010.  If you'd like us to notify you when we bottle it, please contact us and ask to be put on the Whiskey List.

We will not have any Nebbiolo Grappa for over a year.  Last fall's Nebbiolo pomace was mistakenly dumped rather than saved for us, so we had no fruit from which to make the grappa.  We do have five other very good grappas that should not be missed and we encourage you to try them.

Apple in the Bottle has been a bit of a struggle for us.  This is a new-ish product for Clear Creek Distillery.  We thought the Pear-in-the-Bottle was so beautiful and successful that we should do the same thing with apples and have another wonderful fruit-in-the-bottle product.  So a couple of springs ago we put bottles on apple trees for the start of our new brilliant product.  But most of the apples died.  We are still trying to work out why; we are still experimenting.  There are apples growing in bottles now, but like the past few years, only a small percentage of them are successful.  We expect to have more Apple-in-the-Bottle in September, but production is very limited.

Many good retailers throughout the country still have these product in stock, but we have shipped every last case from the distillery in Portland, Oregon, where it is made.  If you would like to be notified when we next bottle these products, please contact us and ask to be put on our waiting list.