One of Lost Lantern Whiskey’s core tenets is to introduce you to a distillery you haven’t tried before (or even heard of!). In three of their four samples sent, they did just that, including Cedar Ridge.

I think I’d heard the name before in passing, but it’s generic enough geographically that I wouldn’t immediately think “oh! Cedar Ridge, Iowa” rather than “Cedar Ridge, insert state here”. That’s not taking anything away from Cedar Ridge, by the way - it’s more a testament to Lost Lantern’s approach. So no hate mail from Iowa, please!

What’s even more surprising was that it was an Iowa Single Malt.

A Single Malt in the state that produces more bushels of corn than any other by a significant margin, where Field of Dreams was set with dead baseballers coming out of the stalks, where corn is so abundant and ubiquitous that it’s basically its own food group. From this cornutopia comes a single malt, 100% malted barley, finished in sherry casks no less.

Iowa produces effectively no barley, enough perhaps for in-state use but not much else. So why a single malt? I’ll have to ask them, and after tasting this, you can bet Cedar Ridge is on my radar for an episode and more tastings.

Not knowing the backstory just yet (yes, I could look it up on their site, but why ruin the learning process), I’ll focus instead on the bottle at hand.

Lost Lantern’s Nora and Adam are putting these distilleries on the national map, but the product itself has to be good to succeed. And succeed it does. Cedar Ridge takes their Iowa Single Malt, ages it for two years in brand new charred oak barrels from ISC then for another two years in an ex-sherry butt from Jerez. These sherry butts are 500 liters, around 2.5x the size of the 53-gallon/~200 liter American Standard Barrel.

It’s not disclosed how many barrels of Cedar Ridge’s single malt is dumped into the sherry butt, but I’m guessing around 2.5-3 based on the 555 bottle outturn at cask strength. If the secondary cask (i.e. the sherry butt) were the same size as the initial barrels, it would easily have overtaken the malt, but because of the sherry butt’s size it has less surface area available relative to the liquid inside (to be clear, there’s more overall surface area, but there’s also more volume required to consistently cover all of that surface area).

BTW - the word “butt” has nothing to do with anyone’s posterior. It comes from the Italian word botte, which means barrel.

This bottle is, above all, fudgy. It’s the fudgy brownie batter and the slightly underbaked but so much better brownies you get by cutting five minutes off the top. There are dried red fruits like Bing cherries and red plums, and the malt is strong enough to present itself through the sherry finishing, but above all it’s the fudge party and a damn good one.

Nora and Adam make it a point to try barrels that exemplify a distillery’s purest character and also ones that are significantly off-profile. I don’t know which one this is, but either way I want to try more. Cedar Ridge, look out for my email!

Thank you to Lost Lantern for providing a sample of this product with no editorial constraints.

Lost Lantern 2021 Single Cask #1: Cedar Ridge Iowa Single Malt Whiskey Finished in a Sherry Cask: Specs

Classification: Iowa Single Malt

Origin: Cedar Ridge Distillery

Mashbill: 100% Malted Barley

Proof: 115.3 (57.65% ABV)

Age: 4 Years Old

Location: Iowa

Lost Lantern 2021 Single Cask #1: Cedar Ridge Iowa Single Malt Whiskey Finished in a Sherry Cask Price: $110

Official Website

Lost Lantern 2021 Single Cask #1: Cedar Ridge Iowa Single Malt Whiskey Finished in a Sherry Cask Review: Tasting Notes

Eye: Bronzed gold. Medium, sloughing rims and quite thin legs.

Nose: Smells exactly as you’d expect it to, sweet sherry overtones with a malty underneath. No oak or proof. A hint of barrel char, some dryness and tannins on the back of the nose.

Palate: The malt comes through first, chocolaty and somewhere between milk and dark levels. Proof and oak spice roll in next, as do dark fried fruits (cherries, plums, dates). The chocolate turns downright fudgy on the chew. Mouthfeel is medium-bodied and creamy, the spice fading as the malt and sherry settle heavily in the corners and sides of my mouth.

Finish: Long, thick coating of dark chocolate and dried fruit on a fudgy backbone. The sherry just slightly overpowers the malt on the finish in terms of overall balance, but I honestly don’t mind it.

Overall: Did I mention fudgy? Deep, chewy chocolate brownies over a fruity malt base. I’d want a bit stronger malt character to take this to the next level, but seriously it’s hard to complain on this one. BRB going to get some brownies.

Final Rating: 7.4

10 | Insurpassable | Nothing Else Comes Close

9 | Incredible | Extraordinary

8 | Excellent | Exceptional

7 | Great | Well above average

6 | Very Good | Better than average

5 | Good | Good, solid, ordinary

4 | Has promise but needs work

1-3 | Let’s have a conversation