Stephen Osborn of Stoutridge Distillery Video blogs about Casis

I’m always keeping a close eye on my ex-pat Hoosier Stephen Osborn now located in New York. He’s always up to something new and interesting at Stoutridge, always innovating or rethinking classic drinks. Today he’s gonna give us a little glimpse of his Casis production. For those unfamiliar with the drink here is a Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A8me_de_cassis

Stephen reports the following:

A liqueur made from black currents is an obvious thing to do for a Hudson Valley distillery because our black currents are top notch. Black currents have a fantastic pungent fruity and leafy aromatics, plus a balanced and vibrant sweet, sour, bitter taste complex. So yes lets make the Cassis!

Cassis is traditionally a french liqueur and we follow the basic french tradition in our methods including barrel aging for over a year.
And the inclusion of some leaves in the mash
We only separate the mash into liquid and sold components after aging.
We stir the soaking mash 2 times a month while it ages and top off with brandy if necessary.

We use black currents grown a mile away.
Thats a 10 time vintage use French Oak wine barrel. We age the Cassis 2 years.
We top off with brandy as the angels drink to insure the berries are submerged throughout aging.
We use white wine brandy also locally grown grapes
It’s distilled at 175 but added at 140 proof

They are very good barrels and very good currants and very good brandy and age is a thing after all. No secret really

The brandy is made from Seyval Blanc grape which grows very well in the hudson valley, is pretty neutral and the brandy is complex but subtle
Oh it has great acidity as well which is necessary as we add no sulfites.
We top the wine tanks with argon and they go through malo lactic and we don’t have oxidation issues. I use 1 year old wine to make the brandy

And I LOVE MAKING CASSIS!
you can quote me!