Botanist & Barrel

Botanist & Barrel crafts a variety of ciders, sours, and dry fruit wines. Using techniques from wine-making, brewing, and mixology they are constantly blurring the lines. They are Orange County’s first winery and cidery, situated just north of Hillsborough, on Cedar Grove Blueberry Farm. They are also farmers raising dry farmed, no-spray, organic blueberries, for the best estate grown fruit on earth.

Founded in 2017 by brother and sister team and Orange County natives, Lyndon and Kether Smith focus on light-handed winemaking using old world methods with modern sensibilities. They lean towards whole fruit fermentation and make natural beverages with no additives or forced carbonation. They ferment to zero residual sugar and the ABV ranges from 7% to 15.5%.

The ciders and wines are raw, wild, unfined, unfiltered, unpasteurized and you will find both still and sparkling ciders. They age in everything from tequila barrels, to sea salt bourbon barrels, to rum, to Sauternes, to tawny port to bourbon maple syrup barrels.

Botanist & Barrel is hyper-local, sourcing ingredients whenever possible from within 200 miles of our farmhouse winery.