Why We Chose the Slower Thing

There are many ways to start a spirits brand. Most of them lead to the same place: a stock bottle, in a category already crowded with versions of itself. We wanted something else. So before anything else, we made a choice.

Pommeau isn’t the obvious one. It’s not the loudest category, or the easiest to explain at a bar. But everything about it felt intentional, including the way it asks you to drink it. At 16% ABV, there’s no burn, none of the consequence that tends to follow a stronger pour. It has the color and weight of something aged in oak, because it is, but the apple is still there underneath, quiet and present. It doesn’t ask to be the main event. It asks for a slower pour and an evening that doesn’t need to be anything other than what it is.

Most American spirits are aged at sea level. Ours isn’t. Stillbound rests in oak at 5,280 feet, in the North Fork Valley of Colorado. The air is thinner up here, the nights are colder, and the barrel works differently as a result. We didn’t set out to do things the hard way. But once we understood what altitude does to a barrel over two years, there wasn’t really a question.

Apple and Brandy crossed the Atlantic a long time ago. It was here before bourbon had a name, in homes and orchards across early America. Then the country moved west, grain took over, and apple brandy quietly stepped back as everything else expanded.

We didn’t bring it back because nothing else was good. We brought it back because this was part of who America was, and it deserves to be part of who America still is.

We didn’t bring it back because nothing else was good. We brought it back because this was part of who America was, and it deserves to be part of who America still is. That’s Stillbound. Apple and brandy, aged two years in oak, at altitude, in Hotchkiss, Colorado. A reminder, not a replacement.

DRAWN TO THE SLOW SIP