Blueberry Vino Amaro

Wine made from New Jersey blueberries

Syrup crafted in-house with Kelloggs Cornflakes & Rare Tea Cellars whole Madagascar Vanilla Beans

Fortified with our own Organic NY Corn Spirit, distilled with Yuzu, Makrut Lime Leaf, Wild Cherry Blossoms, Coconut, Lemon & Cinnamon

Finished with Orris Root, Gentian Root & Quassia Bark

16% Alc by Vol

750mL

Into The Bottle

The blueberries come from a family farm thats devoted itself to this one fruit. Our friend Clark at Briermere makes the drive south with his refrigerated truck and returns with trays of berries so ripe theyre practically bursting staining our hands (and shirts) deep purple before they even hit the fermenter.

We start by treading the berries that means stomping them into juice and pitching yeast quickly. Blueberries are tricky: low in sugar and high in pH, theyre incredibly vulnerable to wild microbes. So timing is everything. We move fast, catching the fermentation early and punching down the cap of skins daily. When the wine reaches its peak wildly aromatic, all gleaming color and intense fruit we fortify it to capture that moment in time.

The fortification blend is heady and complex. We distill a botanical mix of yuzu, makrut lime leaf, cherry blossom, lemon peel, coconut, and cinnamon all using our house-made, organic corn spirit. That base spirit starts with NY-grown corn, fermented and distilled on-site, then used to extract delicate aromatics from each ingredient. The result is a layered, luminous distillate that lifts the blueberry wine into something otherworldly.

For sweetness, we make a syrup thats a little cheeky, a little nostalgic: cornflakes steeped in hot water and sugar, then blended with a whole pound of Madagascar vanilla beans from Rare Tea Cellar. The cereal adds toast and cream notes; the vanilla brings warmth, depth, and a certain indulgent softness. Together, they give Blueberry Daytrip a sweet edge thats generous but not cloying.

To balance it all out, we layer in the bitter. Orris root, gentian root, and quassia bark lend structure a musky, woody, fruit-skin kind of bitterness that lengthens the finish and pulls the sweetness back to earth.

We finish by cold-settling the amaro, dropping the temperature to encourage solids to fall out of suspension, and racking gently off the sediment. Whats left is a clean, vivid expression of summers end just sweet enough, just bitter enough, deeply blue and wildly aromatic.

Its a bottle meant for transition: aperitif or digestif, sipped neat or swapped into a late-summer Negroni (1 oz gin, 1 oz Daytrip, optional dry vermouth). Or poured over ice at a picnic, on the beach, in the last light of September.

This is Blueberry Daytrip. Drink it while the days are still long.

Suggested Serve

Think picnics, porch hangs, beach days, and the in-between season of shorts by day, sweatshirts by night.

Blueberry Bramble

2 oz Blueberry Daytrip

1 oz Gin

1 oz Lemon Juice

.5 oz Simple Syrup

Muddle blueberries and basil in glass. Fill glass with pebble ice. Pour liquid ingredients over pebble ice. Garnish with more basil and a tap of powdered sugar.