I’m proud that the country’s first non-alcoholic distillery and tasting room is here in Oregon. Wilderton is a treasure, both because it is helping to normalize nondrinking and because it makes delicious and unusual non-alc spirits. But as of today, the Hood River-based company is rebranding as Wilderton Aperitivo Co.

What does this new move mean? Wilderton is changing its product lineup to focus on what their press release calls “spritz culture.” For those of us whose drinking was more of the sucking it down out of a paper bag type, I consulted Wikipedia. “A spritz is an Italian wine-based cocktail, commonly served as an apéritif across Italy. It consists of Prosecco, digestive bitters and soda water.”

Wilderton will now sell only two products—bittersweet aperitivo and a new citrus aperitivo. The company sent me product samples to try. My husband and I love fake liquor, and the aperitivo levels have quickly dropped. While you could mix up a lot of mocktails with these NA spirits, we just add them to different flavors of soda water. At first we seemed to be draining the citrus aperitivo faster—which is sweeter—but this week we’re more into the bitter flavor of the original aperitivo.

The switch to aperitivo

The switch is not a total surprise to me, since I had the chance to interview chief distiller Seth O’Malley last year. “I’ve always been particularly fond of Italian spirit traditions,” he told me.  “The aperitivo was our first foray into that. And we’re thinking of other Italian style profiles that we could lean into. So if people are willing to tolerate more bitter flavors, I might keep throwing more bitter flavors at them.”

The only drawback is that Wilderton is discontinuing its two other NA spirits, Earthen and Lustre. I wish they’d just add citrus aperitivo so they’d have four products, instead of subtracting two.

You can read more about Wilderton in this article I wrote for Northwest Travel & Life.