Vermont’s devotion to local agriculture and environmental integrity makes it the perfect home for Mad River Distillers. Founded in 2011, the distillery turns regional grains, pure spring water, and fair‑trade ingredients into spirits that reflect both place and purpose. Built in a renovated horse barn and guided by four core principles, Mad River’s team distills on a traditional Mueller still from Germany to create distinctive expressions like Burnt Rock Bourbon, Double Tapped Maple Bourbon, and Revolution Rye.
Co‑founder Maura Connolly and head distiller Alex Hilton share with Kristiane Weeks-Rogers of CRAFT SPIRITS (CSM) how Mad River’s commitment to craftsmanship and community continues to shape its identity.
CSM: When Mad River Distillers was launched, what aspects of Vermont’s local and environmental culture most shaped the founding philosophy?
Connolly: Well, you know, when we first started the distillery, it was because we have all this land and we had all these apple trees on our property. So we first had the vision of the distillery as making apple brandy—a European-style apple brandy.
And then we very quickly realized that we were going to expand our portfolio if we wanted to keep the lights on. We have access to so many amazing locally grown grains—the corn, the wheat, the barley, the oats, the rye in our neighboring state of Vermont. So we were really excited to craft something that was local and a little different than other things on the market.
Connolly: If you look at the food scene in Vermont, there are all these small businesses that are homegrown and actually make things with their hands. We were really excited to do something that we could make with our own hands and not source any alcohol from other people, which so many craft distilleries were doing. We really wanted to make something on our own.
CSM: And you also started in an old horse barn, right? Did that influence the way the space was designed, the workflow, the sustainability?
Connolly: Well, this all sort of started as an idea, and we didn’t really know what we were doing completely. We thought we were going to be able to have it as a little weekend hobby, and very quickly realized that we weren’t. When we decided to start the distillery, we called our friend Al, who has been a member of our family for years, and said, “Al, you want to renovate this horse barn? We’re sort of interested in a distillery.” And he said, “I’m in right now.”
It was a great way to preserve the history of John Moore’s property, which dates back to the 1800s. The barns were built probably mid‑1900s, but they were in rough shape. So it was a really cool reason to preserve the history of the property and start something new—a new chapter for the farm that dates back hundreds of years. 1840.
CSM: Can you imagine living in Vermont in 1840?
Connolly: I can definitely dream about it—or idealize what I think that would look like. But man, that would be an incredible experience.
Hilton: Sure. I mean, all you have to do is spend a little bit of time in Vermont, and it brings you into a completely different headspace. It’s a beautiful setting and area to work in. We have Cold Spring Farm here where the distillery is located, and a dairy farm just up the road that goes back five or six generations. There’s definitely a lot of history here.
CSM: What a great way to use the land and local ingredients. So being committed to that, what production challenges come with that commitment to local and fair‑trade ingredients, and how have you solved them over the years?
Hilton: The local food movement has been big here for a long time, and I think the distillery is an extension of that. When we first started, we made a commitment to using as many locally sourced ingredients as we could possibly find. It was definitely more of a challenge then—we could find most things regionally and some locally, but now, 15 years later, we can source just about everything except sugar right in our backyard of Vermont, Massachusetts, and New York.
Farmers have really responded to demand from producers like us for the grains they’re growing. We use grains on a much larger scale than bakeries, so we’re able to support local agriculture pretty substantially.
Connolly: And in concert with that, the craft beer movement was happening at the same time we were starting the distillery. We helped build a whole farming industry that could support our distilling.
Hilton: A great example is Valley Malt in Hadley, Massachusetts—a husband‑and‑wife team who opened a small craft malt house to support breweries and distilleries. We linked up with them right from the beginning, and we’ve been working together ever since. They share our ethos of using the very best grains.
CSM: For producers considering a similar sourcing model, what trade‑offs should they anticipate, and what benefits have proven the most meaningful?
Connolly: It’s more expensive to do it how we’re doing it. There’s a reason people buy neutral grain spirits or spirits distilled elsewhere and then add their touches. It’s a lot more work, trial and error, and uncertainty. We have to float the cost of grains, manpower, barrels, water, electricity—everything—for years before it goes to market. It’s a commitment and an expense.
Hilton: Every step of making things from scratch with locally sourced ingredients is more expensive and time‑consuming, but the end result is vastly different from anything else. The grains grown here, the water we use, the barrels—all add a unique touch to the finished product. It’s hard to replicate anywhere else.
Connolly: One thing Al said—the water source—is critical. My farm is called Cold Spring Farm, and we have really pure water used in distillation. I joke that had I been more intelligent, I’d have just bottled water and be on an island somewhere. But seriously, the water we use is a critical component of our distillation.
Hilton: Absolutely. There are springs all over the property, so the water is definitely a critical piece of the puzzle.
CSM: Mad River has four guiding principles. How do those show up in daily decision‑making?
Hilton: Day‑to‑day decisions are often made based on the path of least resistance—but not here. It may be a longer or more challenging road, but it’s the best decision for the finished product. We have a small team, and we’ve all been here from the beginning, so critical decisions are made together.
Connolly: I couldn’t agree more. It’s been mentioned that maybe it would be easier to do things differently, but we’re like, “No way—that’s not who we are.” We’re pretty rigid with what we expect and how we want to do things.
Hilton: A great example is the barns. The easier thing would have been to bulldoze and build new, but we took the longer, more difficult approach of rehabbing the old buildings. From day one, we’ve made decisions that might not seem logical to some but make perfect sense to us.
CSM: Hilton, you’re not just a barn renovator—you’re a distiller.
Hilton: Oh yeah. When I came into the mix, I had never done any distilling—mostly just drinking, which led to some decisions, I think. We were all self‑taught, learning by doing. We visited other distilleries, read books, and practiced. There were failures, but we learned our craft and fine‑tuned it. Over the years, we’ve hired distillers who’ve come and gone, and we’ve learned from all of them. Twenty years ago, I never would’ve thought I’d be sitting here as a distiller.
CSM: Have you been working with that Mueller still since the beginning? What was the choice behind that?
Hilton: Yes, since day one. The Mueller still is well‑suited for fruit distillates—perfect for our apple brandy. The Germans are known for their schnapps and brandies, and the Mueller captures flavor beautifully. You can taste the grain or fruit in the raw spirit. It’s a critical part of our process.
Connolly: At one time, someone suggested we move to a column still, and we said absolutely not. We didn’t want to lose the unique flavor profile we get from the Mueller. We’re pretty committed to that system.
Hilton: Even though we’ve scaled up, every drop of every product still finishes on the same still we started with. That’s unique.
CSM: The samples of your bourbon and Revolution Rye are incredible. The rye especially—those coffee and cocoa notes are stunning. How did you decide to use three rye varieties?
Hilton: It took trial and error. Valley Malt was experimenting with different rye varieties that could withstand cold Vermont winters. We sampled until we landed on the right ones. They malted and roasted the rye three different ways, and we played with ratios. We were committed to a 100% rye mash bill, even though rye is notoriously difficult to work with. Every possible thing that could go wrong with rye has gone wrong—but now we’ve got it dialed in. It’s the spirit I’m most proud of.
CSM: Also very unique is your Burnt Rock Bourbon, which uses maplewood‑smoked barley. Can you take credit for that?
Connolly: Oh yeah—Al can. My house is about 250 yards down the driveway from the distillery, and I came walking up and saw Al had made himself a smoker. I said, “Al, what are you doing?” He said, “Oh, I’m smoking some barley for this new product I was thinking of making.” And I’m like, “Well, you know, Al, that’s not really going to scale up so well, and you’re very close to the rickhouse.”
Connolly: We loved it so much. We typically make new product and test‑market it through our tasting room in Burlington, and if it’s a hit, then we do more. It really was a hit—very unique and quite lovely in its complexity.
Hilton: For me, the thought process was just trying to smoke grain—it seemed like an exciting project. I’m always building things, so we had some steel barrels left over from a project, and that’s what the smoker was originally built out of. Being in Vermont—one of the maple capitals of the world—we have an abundance of maple wood on the property. Using wood from the property to smoke the grain was a really cool idea.
Scaling it was the challenge, and that’s where we proved the concept on a small scale and then presented the idea to our malt house. Smoked grains aren’t new—scotch has been doing it for thousands of years—but using maple wood was new. They were able to scale it for us, and now Burnt Rock is incorporated into our regular monthly production.
CSM: If you could give one piece of advice to a distiller trying to build a brand rooted in place and ethics, what would it be?
Connolly: Be patient and believe in yourself. If you don’t believe in your product, nobody else is going to believe in it. You have to be super patient—don’t rush, don’t oversell. If you oversell and run out of product, you will never get that account back again. So just take your time, be intentional, and don’t cut corners.
Hilton: I agree. Patience is probably the most challenging aspect of the business. With aged spirits, patience is definitely something that is difficult. And I would also say things don’t always work out the way you envision them right down to the T, but it’s important to be adaptable.