Shady Knoll Orchards & Distillery is a new addition to the growing craft distillery industry in the U.S. They are located in the beautiful Hudson River Valley about an hour and a half drive north of New York City. The orchards and distillery lie just south of the quaint Village of Millbrook in Dutchess County on a country farm that dates back to the late 1700s.
The Millbrook-based distillery and orchard taps into family talents to craft its signature apple brandy, pommeau, and whiskey in Dutchess County. They grow their own apples, rye and corn bringing the farm’s unique terroir to their Apple Brandy and Whiskey products. Shady Knoll Orchards & Distillery Apple Brandy is enhanced by combining the flavors from over 120 different varieties of cider apples and other types of apples grown in their own orchard. 100% of all processing, fermenting, distilling, barrel-aging and bottling is done on the farm in small quantities of unique, high quality specialty craft distilled products.
Shady Knoll Orchards & Distillery Homegrown & Handmade Products:
Shady Knoll Apple Brandy
Our apples are our most unique ingredient—we combine over 120 varieties of European and American apples grown with loving care in our own orchard to create our Shady Knoll Apple Brandy… compared to 4-30 varieties grown or purchased “locally” by other distillers (only aware of a few other craft distillers that produce apple brandy from their own homegrown apples). We pick our apples by hand only when they tell us they’re ready in order to maximize their juice and taste, which means we pick constantly.
Shady Knoll Pommeau
We combine our aged Apple Brandy with fresh apple juice from our orchard and then rest the combination in our used Shady Knoll Apple Brandy barrels for at least three months to create a wonderful aperitif drink known in France as Pommeau.
Shady Knoll Whiskey
Our current Shady Knoll Whiskey products include our Shady Knoll Rye Whiskey, Whiskey and Four Grain Whiskey. We expect to release new whiskey products in the near future. We grow specially selected rye grains and corn on our family farm to capture the unique terroir of our family farm… compared to most craft distilleries and all commercial distilleries that source commercial grain from an anonymous blend of unidentified grains from unidentified farms.
skey and Shady Knoll Whiskey is 70% rye, 15% corn and 15% malted barley. The mash bill for our Shady Knoll Four Grain Whiskey is 35% rye, 14% corn, 27% malted barley and 24% wheat. We grind the grains in the hammermill in our granary, cook them in our mash tun and ferment the whiskey in our fermentation tanks—all done onsite.