A few minutes down Route 1 from us, Wiggly Bridge Distillery has some of our coffee beans, but they’re not roasting them. In one of our most local collaborations, Anthony’s Small Batch Roasters offers a one-of-a-kind, aged coffee that’s curated through storage in pre-used bourbon barrels. This special process gives an already unbelievable coffee an entirely new level of great flavor.
At Wiggly Bridge Distillery, there are many special barrels, but we know which ones are our favorites. Look inside the ASBR ones and the staves are burnt nearly black. The char is cracked into a pattern that distillers call alligator skin, and the whole interior still smells faintly of the bourbon it held for years. By the time our coffee ever reaches a roaster, a bag, or your cup, it’s experienced far more than the average coffee bean. Find it on our website here.
A Clever Idea That Changed York Coffee Roasting
David, the founder of Wiggly Bridge Distillery, and Mark, the owner of Anthony's, have found great friendship over their authentic, local businesses in York. Two seasoned entrepreneurs running small operations in the same town originally found different responses to the same interesting question of 'what the best way to intertwine agriculture and the spirit of York' would be.
One day, however, they decided to bring their two ideas together to form something legendary, and the rest is history. Now, the two local owners continue finding common ground to make their crafts cross paths. If anything screams York, it's this!
The Closeness of The Two Processes Explained
People don’t tend to think about coffee and whiskey the same way. Once you know the processes of each discipline though, you realize that the two crafts have much in common that makes this collaboration fit seamlessly.
Both start with something you can't drink
A green coffee bean is grassy, hard, and vegetal. Nobody chews one for pleasure. Neither is a mash of cracked corn and rye. In both cases, a natural resource is taken and turned into something special through expertise. In both cases there’s potential, and it comes to fruition through locally-based talent.
Both lose weight and gain character
Coffee sheds fifteen to twenty percent of its mass in the roaster, mostly water. Whiskey gives up its angels' share to the wood every year it sits. In both cases, if it’s done right, age makes batches of each item more concentrated.
Both live or die on a single batch
Being in York, we take our commitment to our craft seriously, so we make sure to do it right. Batch size is part of our philosophy – it’s in our name. The beauty of doing things the ASBR way is that no other coffee roaster can replicate it – and we know it’s the same for Wiggly Bridge Distillery. When each batch is a little different, that difference is what makes it distinctly ours.
Taste Our Coffee All Over York
The best part of this collaboration is that it isn't one-way. Our coffee ends up in cocktails at Wiggly Bridge. Their barrels shape our beans. A bag of the collab roast leaves our shelf and a coffee cocktail gets poured down the road, and both of those things happened because two neighbors decided to share what they had. You can find the coffee in bags at the shop and online, by the cup at our café, and on the menu at a handful of other local businesses who carry it. It comes in whole bean and every grind that ASBR offers, from cold brew to pour over to espresso, at $24.99.
Once You Taste It, You’ll Be Hooked
Stop into Anthony’s and have a cup. Grab a bag for someone who thinks they've had every coffee worth having, or for those seeking a bold flavor like no other. Better yet: head down to Wiggly Bridge Distillery and order a cocktail with our beans in it to see our coffee in action. At Wiggly Bridge Distillery, some barrels get to live a double life, and we’re grateful for it. Not many roasters get to take beans out of a barrel instead of a coffee bag – especially in York, Maine.