Trip to distillery inspired couple to open their own

Mike and Amy Orlando were on one of the first tours that Le Claire, Iowabased Mississippi River Distilling Co. ever gave of its facilities. Near the end of the tour, the guide noted the distillery was looking for volunteers to help bottle its spirits, which include a number of whiskeys called Cody Road.

New to town and knowing few people in the area, the couple decided to lend a hand at the upstart distillery. Bottling was fun, and over the next 18 months, the couple became regular volunteers. At the same time, they began to learn what goes into running a craft distillery.

“We became enamored with the idea of craft distilling,” Mike Orlando says. “Finally, the guys at Mississippi River said to us, ‘You guys ought to do this. Just don’t do it here.’ ”

And so they did. In 2014, the couple moved 127 miles east to Geneva, Ill., and opened Fox River Distilling Co. While Mike Orlando may have learned the mechanics of distilling whiskey, and bourbon in particular, at Mississippi River, he sought to craft a different take on bourbon.

“I like my bourbon a little spicier than Cody Road,” he says.

Named after Le Claireborn William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, Mississippi River’s Cody Road Bourbon Whiskey is a wheated bourbon with a mash bill that’s 70 percent corn, 20 percent wheat and 10 percent unmalted barley. That makes for a sweet, subtle bourbon with a creamy mouthfeel. Fox River’s Bennett Mill Bourbon, which is named after a 19th-century Geneva mill that sold finely milled grains that may have supplied Geneva’s local distillery, is a more assertive whiskey thanks to a mash bill that’s 20 percent rye, along with 75 percent corn and 5 percent malted barley.

That mash bill makes for a bold whiskey with notes of cinnamon, vanilla and caramel. While Mike Orlando drinks it straight, or with a couple of drops of water to open up the whiskey’s flavor, I think its spicy notes work well in simple cocktails like an Old-Fashioned or Manhattan.

Given that the distillery offers $10 tours Fridays and Saturdays, Fox River may inspire others to put their own spin on America’s native spirit.