Bottles of Cabbage Hill whiskey await labeling at the distillery.

PENDLETON — After more than two years aging in the Oregon Grain Growers Brand Distillery basement, the first three barrels of the distillery’s new Cabbage Hill aged whiskey emerged from the cellar for bottling last week — just in time for the 87th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition.

“It’s a lot of science and a lot of fingers crossed,” said Kelli Bullington, co-owner of the distillery.

Thursday, Dec. 3, marked the culmination of finger crossing and science as the first bottles of whiskey began to fill and staff went about the process of corking, labeling and sealing the roughly 800-bottle inaugural run.

Cabbage Hill marks the distillery’s first aged wheat whiskey, a product that has been a dream of owners Kelli and Rodney Bullington since they first opened the Pendleton microdistillery in 2016.

In the true spirit of their past projects, which have focused on local ingredients and production, the wheat whiskey features wheat from local farmers milled and distilled in Pendleton, according to Bullington.

After a multimonth distilling process in 2018, the 120-proof spirit was poured into wine barrels and left to age in the distillery’s basement, said Bullington. From there, Bullington, her husband, and the rest of the Oregon Grain Growers Brand Distillery staff did the best they could to forget about it, periodically checking the color and flavor, and waiting for the American oak barrels to work their magic.

“The whiskey pulls from that color and that flavor and the char that’s been in there and everything else that’s been in there,” said Bullington, referring to the barrels.

Wes Murack, who helped with the distilling, barreling and bottling process, and has been involved in brewing and distilling for nearly a decade, said the barrels react to the changes in temperature, drawing water in and out of the wood from the spirit to give the whiskey its color and flavor.

“It’s great — you get the straight plain spirit and you’re not sure what the barrel is going to do to it — you really have no idea,” said Murack. “You just have to trust the barrel and see what happens.”

Murack said the barrels served their purpose well and provided the whiskey the color and flavor he’d been desiring.

“Luckily they’ve done a really awesome job, they gave it a bunch of good color and a lot of great flavor,” said Murack. “It’s crazy to see two years later something that you put in and weren’t sure what would happen and it comes out and you’re like, this is great. It’s fantastic.”

Bullington said the original plan was to launch the whiskey during the 2020 Pendleton Round-Up, but the cancellation of the event threw a wrench in the plans. While the delay was unexpected, Bullington said the extra time helped to finish off the whiskey nicely.

“We did some early tastings and just didn’t feel like it was ready,” said Bullington.

In search of a new launch date, Bullington decided a launch in honor of the repeal of Prohibition would be a fitting cause for celebration.

Prohibition, which began on Jan. 16, 1920, ran for 13 years before its repeal under the 21st Amendment on Dec. 5, 1933.

In preparing for the launch of the whiskey, it was pulled from its barrels and mixed with water to bring the spirit down to 90 proof before being bottled by an army of volunteers on Thursday afternoon.

While the Dec. 3 bottling run used about 3¼ barrels to produce the roughly 800 bottles, the Bullingtons said they have another eight barrels still aging.

“As they age, we try the different barrels and see if we need to mix and match barrels,” said Bullington.