At the 14th annual American Distilling Institute (ADI) Conference and Expo on Tuesday, Cedar Ridge Distillery was named the 2017 “Distillery of the Year.”

Bill Owens, president of the ADI, presented the award. “ADI works to bring craft spirits to the public, as well as to strengthen the community of distillers and their providers,” he commented. “Cedar Ridge was chosen from among a field of more than 1,300 craft distilleries across the country for the quality of their whiskeys, their commitment to grain-to-glass production, their ongoing legislative advocacy and leadership, and their ongoing product innovation.”

Jeff Quint, founder and owner of Cedar Ridge, says: “This is huge for us. We’ve been at this for a while. 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. Today, we sell 20,000 cases a year and are available to about 90% of the U.S. population. We use our own corn. We grow it; we mash it; we ferment it; we distill it; we barrel-age it; and we bottle it. We have about two-and-a-half years’ stock in our rick houses. In our home state, within super-premium bourbon, we’re #2 to only Maker’s Mark. Bill, I suspect this honor might help us reach #1.”