Review: Cedar Ridge Anniversary Edition 2025

Cedar Ridge — has it been 20 years already? The little Iowan distillery that could is celebrating its platinum anniversary by — how else? — releasing a new bourbon to commemorate the moment.

As has become common for Cedar Ridge, it’s a complex beast, made from its signature mashbill of 74% Iowa corn, 14% rye, and 12% malted barley. From there it is aged in new oak before finishing in a mix of Tokaji, ruby Port, Amontillado sherry, and fresh new American oak barrels before being blended by Master Blender Murphy Quint. No age statements are provided.

“To mark our 20th anniversary, I wanted to create a whiskey that honors our beginnings while also representing what we’ve evolved into. This release unites two cornerstones of our history—Iowa bourbon and wine—with the craft we’ve mastered in recent years: blending cask-finished whiskeys. The result is a wine-cask finished bourbon, a truly special release that brings our journey full circle,” says Quint.

Happy anniversary, guys! Let’s see what a celebration tastes like.

Cedar Ridge Anniversary Edition 2025 Review

This is immediately more wood-heavy than I initially anticipated, particularly given all the wine barrel finishing at play. The ample char aromatics are however counterbalanced by heavy notes of maple syrup and a bit of shredded, sweetened coconut, with touches of lemon curd creeping in at times. It’s a curious and somewhat scattered combination of aromas but it does at least set the stage perhaps for something intriguing to follow.

On the palate, again new oak has its way with things. Heavily charred and ashy, the palate is initially driven by flavors of burnt matches and creosote, quite youthful and tough. That maple note roars back with a vengeance, though, offering a very sweet foil to the more rustic attack. This helps to lighten things up, folding in vanilla, plump raisins, and a more visible lemon curd character, but it feels like things soon swing a bit too far the other way, coating the mouth with an overly sweet character that borders on candylike.

The whiskey never quite finds a balance between its id and ego, and while the construction here is certainly innovative, it doesn’t work as well as some of Quint’s other creations. Either way, happy 20th.

110 proof.

B- / $60

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