Iowa Athletics and Cedar Ridge Distillery Launch 1847 Bourbon and Vodka — A First in Hawkeye History
College sports and craft spirits have been slowly converging for years, with athletic departments recognizing that their most passionate fans are adults who want to celebrate their teams in every facet of life — including what's in the glass. Iowa Athletics just took that trend to its logical conclusion. Iowa Athletics and Cedar Ridge Distillery have introduced 1847 Bourbon and 1847 Vodka, a limited-edition spirits collection celebrating the University of Iowa's history and Hawkeye tradition. It is a partnership rooted in place, in shared agricultural identity, and in the kind of institutional pride that doesn't wash off after the final whistle.
The partnership, facilitated by Hawkeye Sports Properties, marks the first official bourbon and vodka partnership in Iowa Athletics history. That distinction matters. Iowa is not a program that does things for show — the Hawkeyes have one of the most consistent football programs in the Big Ten, a passionate and geographically scattered fanbase, and a tradition of finding durable partners rather than chasing trends. Joining forces with Cedar Ridge Distillery, Iowa's most decorated craft spirits producer, signals that this collaboration was built to last.
The Name Says Everything: Why 1847
The number on the bottle is not arbitrary. The collection is named for 1847, the year the University of Iowa was established. Choosing a founding year as the brand name is a move that any bourbon drinker will immediately appreciate — it anchors the product in history and craftsmanship rather than hype. There's a long tradition in American whiskey of using dates to confer authenticity: think of the years stamped on single barrel releases, or the storied founding dates of the great Kentucky distilleries printed on their labels. Iowa's 1847 collection borrows that same visual and conceptual language and plants it firmly in the Hawkeye tradition.
Bottles feature a co-branded design with the Tigerhawk logo. The Tigerhawk — Iowa's iconic, instantly recognizable mark — gives the bottle a dual identity: it works as a collector's item for Hawkeye fans and as a legitimate craft spirit that stands on its own merits. That balance is harder to achieve than it looks, and it speaks to Cedar Ridge's track record of producing bottles that earn shelf space on quality alone.
What Iowa Athletics Has to Say
The people running Iowa's athletic department have clearly thought beyond a simple licensing arrangement. Matt Henderson, Iowa's deputy director of athletics for external relations, put it plainly in an official statement: "We are excited to celebrate this expanded partnership with Cedar Ridge and the introduction of 1847 Bourbon and Vodka to Hawkeye fans. Cedar Ridge has been a valued partner of the Hawkeyes for many years, and their commitment to quality, innovation and Iowa-made craftsmanship aligns with what our fans appreciate and support."
The phrase "expanded partnership" is significant. This isn't a cold-call deal thrown together before the season. Cedar Ridge partnered with Iowa Athletics in 2024, meaning the two organizations spent time understanding each other before committing to a co-branded product line. The 1847 collection is the fruit of that longer relationship — an escalation rather than an introduction.
Henderson's framing around "Iowa-made craftsmanship" is equally deliberate. Iowa fans are famously loyal to their own, and aligning the athletic department with a homegrown spirit producer rather than an out-of-state corporate brand sends a clear message about priorities. This is a program that wants to be seen as a steward of Iowa identity, not just a licensing vehicle.
Cedar Ridge's Voice: Pride in State, Pride in Craft
Jamie Siefken, president of Cedar Ridge Distillery, was equally direct about what this partnership means at the brand level. "As Iowa's first licensed distillery, everything we do is rooted in our pride for this state, its homegrown corn and its people. The Hawkeyes represent the very best of Iowa's grit, tradition and community — values we pour into every single bottle of Cedar Ridge."
That quote does double duty: it positions Cedar Ridge as a distillery with authentic regional character, and it ties the Hawkeye brand to the same values. For a fanbase that takes pride in Iowa's heartland identity — particularly in a college football landscape increasingly dominated by coastal money and transfer portal mercenaries — this alignment hits a genuine emotional note.
Siefken's reference to Iowa's "homegrown corn" is not window dressing. Cedar Ridge Winery and Distillery in Swisher uses "acres of Iowa grown grapes [and] unending bushels of corn straight from our fertile Midwestern soil." The distillery's grain-to-glass commitment is what separates it from contract-distilled, label-slapped collegiate spirits that have populated the sports sponsorship space over the past decade.
Cedar Ridge: Two Decades of Building Something Real
A Family Business, a Garage, and a Big Idea
Understanding what Iowa fans are actually buying when they pick up a bottle of 1847 Bourbon requires understanding who makes it. Cedar Ridge is not a branding exercise with a distillery attached. Founded in 2005 by Jeff Quint and his wife Laurie, Cedar Ridge Distillery is a craft distillery in Iowa with family roots dating back to Germany. The family's connection to agriculture and fermentation is ancient — not metaphorically, but literally. The Quint family originally hails from Baden-Württemberg, and their ancestors immigrated to the United States in 1881.
The American chapter of that story began with a dream that most people would have called unrealistic. Iowa's Cedar Ridge's story begins with a dream, and a garage: "We were a literal garage distillery; literally a distillery and winery inside of our garage," says Murphy Quint, head distiller and Director of Operations of Cedar Ridge. "Both my parents were working normal jobs when they started in 2005, trying to make this dream of a winery and distillery combination come true."
In 2005, Jeff Quint — ninth-generation farmer and fermenter — followed his heart from accountancy back to his distilling roots when he and his wife Laurie opened Cedar Ridge, the first licensed distillery in the state of Iowa since Prohibition. That credential — first licensed distillery in Iowa since Prohibition — is one the distillery has earned and repeated because it matters. It represents a decision to build something from nothing in a state that had been without legal distillation for decades.
The Bourbon Pivot That Changed Everything
The original business plan was wine. It did not stay that way for long. The logic of Iowa's agricultural landscape made an argument that was hard to refute. "My dad had a lightbulb moment. Iowa is the corn capital of our country. Bourbon is made from corn…why isn't anyone here producing bourbon on a large scale?" Quint recalls. "So once we started to wrap our heads around that, we really went all in on it, and started producing Iowa bourbon at a rapid pace."
That pivot produced results that would have seemed impossible during the garage years. In 2020, Cedar Ridge proudly claimed the title of the Number One Selling Bourbon in Iowa, surpassing both Maker's Mark and Jim Beam. Iowa remains the only state where a Kentucky-based distillery doesn't hold the top spot. That is an astonishing commercial achievement in a category that Kentucky producers have dominated since before the Civil War. "We were the first craft distillery to become the number one selling bourbon in any state," Murphy Quint noted — a claim that puts Cedar Ridge in genuinely rarefied company.
Cedar Ridge has held this title for five consecutive years and has no intention of relinquishing it. That kind of staying power is not built on novelty or regional protectionism alone. It's built on a product that drinkers keep returning to.
Iowa's Climate as a Secret Weapon
Part of what makes Cedar Ridge bourbon distinct is the environment in which it ages. Iowa's unpredictable climate creates ideal conditions for aging whiskey — no temperature control needed. Thanks to the fluctuations in cold and hot temperatures, oak barrels expand and contract naturally, adding all natural flavor to the spirits. This thermally driven extraction is the same principle that makes Kentucky and Tennessee bourbon what it is — dramatic seasonal swings force the spirit deep into the wood grain, pulling vanillin, caramel compounds, and tannins that give the whiskey its character. Iowa's climate, with its brutal winters and punishing summers, delivers those swings in abundance.
Cedar Ridge not only grows its own corn, but it also mashes, ferments, distills, ages and bottles the product with a focus on letting nature run its course with non-climate controlled aging in barrels stored in a natural environment. That full vertical integration — from field to finished bottle — is what purists in the craft spirits world talk about when they use the phrase "grain to glass." It's not just a marketing term at Cedar Ridge. It's an operational reality built over two decades.
Awards, Recognition, and a Growing Footprint
Since their first batch of whiskey in 2010, Cedar Ridge has gained national attention with their spirits, winning multiple awards such as American Distilling Institute's "2017 Distiller of the Year", Double Gold at San Francisco World Spirits Competition and "Best American Single Malt" by World Whiskies Awards, Barleycorn Awards and the ASCOT Awards. The American Single Malt category win is particularly notable — it places Cedar Ridge in a conversation that stretches far beyond Iowa's borders, competing directly with the best craft malted whiskey producers in the country.
The return of son Murphy Quint in 2014 marked a new era of creativity, pushing the boundaries of bourbon and the rise of American Single Malt. Since then, Cedar Ridge has expanded its program to include over 200 finishing casks on site. That finishing cask program gives the distillery an enormous palette to work with — a tool that has allowed it to create collaborative and limited-release products with genuine distinction rather than cosmetic label changes.
Cedar Ridge is not only an award-winning winery, but also a nationally recognized distillery with award-winning whiskeys. Cedar Ridge products are available for sale in over 30 states and five countries. For a distillery built in a garage in Swisher, Iowa — a town of fewer than a thousand people — that distribution footprint represents one of the more remarkable growth stories in American craft spirits.
The Machinery Behind the Deal: Hawkeye Sports Properties and the Learfield Model
Partnerships like this one don't happen through a handshake at a tailgate. Hawkeye Sports Properties, the local Learfield team representing Iowa Athletics, holds the school's exclusive multimedia rights and oversees sponsorship agreements on behalf of the Hawkeyes. Learfield is one of the dominant forces in collegiate athletics media and sponsorship, and the local HSP team operates as Iowa's dedicated commercial arm — vetting partners, structuring deals, and ensuring that the brands attached to the Hawkeye name meet the program's standards.
In complete collaboration with the university, the Hawkeye Sports Properties team is committed to extending the affinity of the Hawkeyes' brand to businesses and corporations of all sizes looking to align with the undeniably loyal and passionate collegiate sports fan base. As Iowa's exclusive athletics multimedia rightsholder, Hawkeye Sports Properties manages all aspects of the rights relationship including venue signage; event sponsorships and promotion; corporate hospitality; television; digital engagement and visibility through the official athletics website, as well as radio game broadcasts and coaches' shows.
What that infrastructure means for the 1847 collection is reach. Cedar Ridge makes the whiskey. Iowa Athletics provides the brand equity and the audience. Hawkeye Sports Properties builds and manages the connective tissue between them, ensuring that 1847 Bourbon and Vodka will be visible across every platform and venue that Iowa Athletics occupies — from Kinnick Stadium on a September Saturday to the digital channels that Hawkeye fans consume year-round.
The Proceeds and the Purpose
The business structure here rewards more than the two named partners. Proceeds from bottles of 1847 Bourbon and Vodka will support the future of the athletics program. That's a meaningful detail for fans who think about where their money goes. Buying a bottle of 1847 isn't just a consumer transaction — it's a contribution to the athletic department's ability to compete, recruit, and sustain the programs that Hawkeye fans care about. In the current landscape of college athletics, where Name Image and Likeness deals, revenue sharing, and the transfer portal have fundamentally altered the financial architecture of every program, alternative revenue streams like this carry real weight.
This model — fan-purchased, Iowa-made, proceeds directed back to the program — has a clean elegance to it. It doesn't ask fans to donate. It asks them to drink something they'd enjoy anyway, made by a distillery they already respect, while wearing the colors of a team they'd defend in any argument. That's a proposition that writes itself.
A Broader Trend: Craft Spirits and Collegiate Athletics
Iowa is not the first school to pursue this territory, and it won't be the last. Iowa State has already been down a similar road — Iowa Distilling Company bottled a vodka that gives back to ISU Athletics and the We Will Collective, creating "a spirit that Iowa State fans, supporters and alumni can be proud to enjoy at home or out with friends." Century Farms Distillery has also produced a bourbon for Iowa State Football, with a portion of every bottle sold supporting Iowa State Athletics and the Cyclone Gridiron Club and their mission to enhance the Iowa State football program and student-athlete experience.
But the Iowa-Cedar Ridge partnership carries a different weight than most of these arrangements, for a simple reason: Cedar Ridge was already Iowa's most commercially successful craft distillery before the deal was signed. This isn't a small local producer getting a visibility boost from athletic branding. It's a nationally distributed award-winner with a two-decade track record entering an official partnership with one of the Big Ten's legacy programs. The quality floor on 1847 Bourbon is genuinely high because Cedar Ridge's core product line is genuinely excellent.
The trend of colleges moving into the spirits space is also a reflection of a broader shift in how athletic departments think about fan engagement. The Hawkeyes' fanbase skews older and more affluent than social media metrics suggest, and those fans have disposable income they're willing to spend on premium lifestyle products tied to their team. A bottle of 1847 Bourbon sitting on the shelf of a Hawkeye alum's home bar isn't just a trophy — it's a conversation piece, a gift option, a game-day pour, and a statement of identity all at once.
What This Means for the Enthusiast: A Bottle Worth Seeking Out
For the bourbon drinker who also happens to bleed black and gold, the 1847 collection arrives with context that amplifies its appeal. Cedar Ridge's core bourbon — the engine underneath whatever 1847 is built on — is a serious whiskey. Notes of caramel, honey, anise and cedar are well balanced, making it very approachable. That profile makes it equally suited for sipping neat on a cold November Saturday before kickoff or pouring over ice during a summer offseason gathering.
The limited-edition nature of the collection adds a layer of collectibility. The 1847 collection is described as limited-edition, which means fans who want to secure bottles would be wise to move sooner rather than later. Cedar Ridge's finished and specialty releases have a history of disappearing quickly, and a co-branded Hawkeye product carries demand that extends beyond the usual whiskey enthusiast crowd into the much larger universe of Iowa Athletics supporters.
Cedar Ridge and Iowa Athletics have encouraged fans who are 21 and older to drink responsibly. It's standard language, but it also underscores that this is an adult-oriented product intended to be part of a genuine drinking culture around Iowa Athletics — not a novelty, not a gimmick, but a legitimate spirit for mature fans who want something worth pouring.
The Distillery Itself: A Destination Worth the Drive
Cedar Ridge Distillery is set amid rolling corn fields in bucolic Swisher, Iowa, which is located about a ten-minute drive from both Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. That geography is almost too perfect — the distillery sits almost exactly between the two cities that anchor Iowa's college sports culture. For Hawkeye fans making the pilgrimage to Iowa City for a game, a stop in Swisher is an easy and rewarding detour.
Cedar Ridge is not just a distillery but a winery, and a restaurant, and a music venue, with great views of the grapes, and the corn, and the lush green Iowa countryside. As an experience destination, it checks every box that the modern whiskey tourist is looking for: production transparency, tastings, a working farm in plain view, and food to anchor the visit. The 1847 partnership gives Hawkeye fans one more reason to put Cedar Ridge on their game-week itinerary.
Grit, Corn, and Community: What the Partnership Really Represents
Strip away the press release language and what Iowa Athletics and Cedar Ridge have built together is a product with genuine shared DNA. Both institutions are built on Iowa corn, Iowa work ethic, and the kind of unglamorous sustained effort that produces results that outlast any single season or any single release. Cedar Ridge became Iowa's best-selling bourbon by outworking the Kentucky giants on their home turf. Iowa Athletics built a program that has won consistently for decades without the recruiting advantages of a Florida, Texas, or Ohio State.
The 1847 Bourbon and Vodka collection isn't just a licensing deal with a nice label. It's an extension of a shared story about what Iowa is, what it values, and what it produces when it sets its mind to something. For Hawkeye fans who want their tailgate shelf to tell that story, the case for a bottle of 1847 is about as straightforward as bourbon math gets: great distillery, great team, great cause. Pour one and raise a glass to 1847 — the year it all started, and the number on a bottle that means something.
