This fall, as part of its annual Harvest Release, Woodinville Whiskey will introduce Woodinville Bourbon Sauternes Finish and Woodinville Founder’s Find.

Sauternes Finish, a grain to glass offering, will be priced at $69.99 per bottle. Founder’s Find will retail for $129.99.

This spring, Woodinville Bourbon Sauternes Finish earned Double Platinum in Fred Minnick’s 2024 ASCOT competition. This small-batch spirit starts with traditionally grown corn, rye and malted barley. 

All of Woodinville’s staple grains are cultivated exclusively on the Omlin Family farm in Quincy, Washington. The grains are mashed and distilled in the Woodinville, WA, distillery, then trucked back over the Cascade Mountains for barreling and aging in their private barrel houses, where Central Washington’s extreme temperature cycles promote the extraction of natural flavors from the oak. 

Prior to being coopered, the barrel wood is seasoned in open air, rain, wind, sun, and snow for eighteen months, softening the wood’s harsh tannins. The barrels are then slowly toasted and heavily charred to further enrich the wood’s desirable flavors. After the whiskey was fully mature, it was transferred into freshly emptied Sauternes casks.

The first 500 numbered bottles of Woodinville Bourbon Sauternes Finish will be released exclusively at the distillery’s Harvest Release on October 19 (105 proof). The first 500 numbered bottles of this whiskey will also be available that day, when Woodinville founders Brett Carlile and Orlin Sorensen will be joined by Fred Minnick to taste the whiskeys and sign bottles.  

The Harvest Release will also feature Founder’s Find, a sourced whiskey priced at $129.99 per bottle (107 proof).  

“Working on new whiskey innovation projects with Moët Hennessy, our parent company, introduced me to the world of sourced whiskey,” Woodinville Whiskey Co-founder and CEO Orlin Sorensen said in a news release. “One bourbon I encountered really called out to me and, when Brett and I tasted it together, we knew it was something special.” 

At that moment, Woodinville’s new Founder’s Find collection was born. The first bottling in this line of rare and unusual whiskeys is a 12-year-old whiskey from Tennessee, blended six years into aging with a small dose (4%) of 15-year-old Indiana bourbon.

Its body and flavor comes not only from the liquid but from the uncommon way it’s been aged: in a reconditioned barrel, a process by which used barrelsare scraped clean and freshly toasted and charred. Years ago, a group of renowned distillers proposed the use of these barrels and began experimenting, only to be rebuffed by lawmakers. Which is how Orlin uncovered this forgotten barrel in the back corner of a legendary rickhouse, patiently waiting for someone to notice and appreciate it.

Confident they’d happened upon something extraordinary, Orlin and Brett entered Woodinville Founder’s Find in the 2024 San Francisco Spirit Awards Competition, where it earned Double Gold medals. The esteemed judges also selected it as one of four finalists for “Best in Class” in the American Blended Whiskey category. 

Woodinville Founder’s Find earned Double Platinum in Fred Minnick’s 2024 ASCOT Awards, and it was propelled to the top in a blind tasting by a panel of judges. Out of 900 entries it was a finalist for “Best in Show” and, while not the ultimate winner, Fred selected it as his personal vote for #1 Best in Show Whiskey.  

The first 500 numbered bottles of Founder’s Find (107 proof) will be released exclusively at the distillery’s Harvest Release on October 19 at $129.99 per bottle. The first 500 numbered bottles of this bourbon will also be available that day, when Brett and Orlin will be joined by Fred Minnick to taste the whiskeys and sign bottles. 

Both Harvest Release whiskeys will be available online at a later date.

Read more: Woodinville Set to Release 8-Year Bourbon Expression

About Woodinville Whiskey Company

Woodinville Whiskey Company (www.woodinvillewhiskeyco.com) is a craft distillery founded by two longtime friends and residents of the Woodinville area, Orlin Sorensen and Brett Carlile under the mentorship of an industry icon, the late David Pickerell, former Master Distiller for Maker’s Mark. Woodinville is Washington state’s largest craft distillery.