Pittsburgh's Wigle Whiskey and the Heinz History Center Are Bringing George Washington's Favorite Spirit Back for America's 250th
When George Washington crossed the Allegheny Mountains on horseback in the fall of 1784, he didn't pack light. Among his provisions was a cordial that served as both refreshment and comfort on the frontier: Cherry Bounce, a spiced, brandy-steeped cherry drink he was known to favor above nearly all others. When Washington traveled west across the Allegheny Mountains in September 1784, he packed that brandy-based cordial for the journey. Now, more than two centuries later, Pittsburgh's Wigle Whiskey and the Senator John Heinz History Center are calling that tradition back to life — this time in honor of the nation's 250th birthday.
The collaboration between one of Pittsburgh's most decorated craft distilleries and one of the largest history museums in Pennsylvania is the kind of partnership that only makes sense in a city whose identity is inseparable from American whiskey. As part of the celebrations, visitors can raise a glass to 250 years of American history with a special Cherry Bounce cocktail experience with Wigle Whiskey, shop through the eras at a vintage market, and test their Americana knowledge during a trivia throwdown. It is a toast to the nation, but it is also something deeper — a reminder that the American spirit, in every sense of that phrase, was forged in the hills and rivers of Western Pennsylvania long before bourbon ever claimed the national identity.
Cherry Bounce: Washington's Drink of Choice at the Frontier
Cherry Bounce isn't a footnote in American cocktail history — it's a primary source. Cherry Bounce dates back to America's colonial period when the sweet cordial served as a centerpiece at social gatherings, combining tart cherries, sugar, and spices like cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg steeped in brandy for weeks or months. The drink demanded patience and planning, and the Washington household took it seriously. Notes in the diary of Martha Washington referenced a recipe for making a large batch of Cherry Bounce using 20 pounds of cherries, cognac, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
Washington was known for his love of cherries, including using them to make cherry bounce, and while the famous cherry tree story is fictional, Washington did grow and consume cherries at his Mount Vernon estate, where enslaved workers made and preserved the fruit in various ways, including producing cherry bounce. In 2024, archaeologists at Mount Vernon discovered bottles of preserved cherries buried in the mansion's basement, likely processed by the estate's enslaved cook Doll — a discovery that offered a tangible, sobering connection to the people whose labor made Washington's hospitality possible.
What makes Cherry Bounce such a resonant artifact for America's semiquincentennial is its connection to Washington's relationship with the very land that would define the young republic's economy. Washington was a fan of port and Madeira wine, but when he traveled west across the Allegheny Mountains in 1784, he brought Cherry Bounce packed in his canteens for trips out to the frontier. That frontier, of course, ran directly through Pittsburgh — the very city where Wigle Whiskey now stands.
Wigle's Modern Interpretation: From Brandy to Bourbon
Wigle Whiskey's version of Cherry Bounce doesn't pretend to be a museum replica. The Pittsburgh-based craft distillery has launched a cherry-flavored bourbon that draws inspiration from George Washington's favorite tipple, reimagining the colonial-era Cherry Bounce cordial for modern palates. Where Washington's household reached for brandy, Wigle reaches for bourbon — a distinctly American substitution that reflects how the country's distilling tradition evolved over the centuries that followed. Before the nation was fully formed, a cordial known as Cherry Bounce fueled the spirited conversations of the Founding Fathers, and Wigle honors this enduring tradition by crafting a modern interpretation of that beloved spirit.
Wigle's interpretation swaps brandy for bourbon while maintaining the drink's characteristic cherry sweetness, with the distillery describing official tasting notes of almond, cinnamon, and vanilla in the finished product. The Cherry Whiskey marries the bold character of bourbon with the sweetness of cherry — a combination that fits naturally into Wigle's broader commitment to telling American history through the glass.
"Flavored whiskeys have seen incredible growth across the industry, as more people are discovering approachable and creative ways to enjoy whiskey," said Alex Moser, Chief Operating Officer at Wigle Whiskey. But Wigle's motivations run deeper than market trends. This is a distillery that has staked its identity on the specific, often forgotten history of Western Pennsylvania whiskey, and Cherry Bounce is a natural extension of that mission — a drink with documented presidential pedigree, a Pittsburgh connection through Washington's frontier travels, and a recipe that survived two and a half centuries to land in a craft cocktail bar in the Strip District.
The Heinz History Center Connection: A Collaboration Built on Precedent
The partnership between Wigle and the Heinz History Center for America's 250th is not a first-time arrangement. These two Pittsburgh institutions have been doing this kind of work together for nearly a decade. In 2018, Wigle worked with Pittsburgh's Heinz History Center on a Prohibition Rye whiskey to accompany the museum's "American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition" exhibition. That release — a single barrel rye whiskey bottled at 84 proof with notes of citrus and honey on the nose and a finish of black pepper — demonstrated exactly what a distillery-museum partnership could produce when both institutions treat American history as something worth drinking to.
The Senator John Heinz History Center partnered with Wigle Whiskey to release a special, limited-edition Prohibition Rye whiskey, with Wigle developing the new expression as a nod to the rich history of alcoholic spirits in Western Pennsylvania. Wigle produced a limited-edition run of 250 bottles for that collaboration — a number that carried obvious symbolic weight. Now, for the national semiquincentennial, the stakes and the symbolism are both considerably larger.
The Senator John Heinz History Center, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, is the largest history museum in Pennsylvania and presents American history with a Western Pennsylvania connection. That mandate to connect national history to regional identity is precisely what makes its partnership with Wigle so coherent. This program is part of the History Center's year-long commemoration of the U.S. Semiquincentennial, marking the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, in partnership with America250PA. America250PA was established by the Pennsylvania state legislature and Governor in 2018 to plan, encourage, develop, and coordinate the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, Pennsylvania's integral role in that event, and the impact of its people on the nation's past, present, and future.
Who Is Wigle Whiskey? The Distillery That Rebuilt Pittsburgh's Rye Legacy
To understand why Wigle is the right distillery for this moment, you have to understand the improbable chain of events that brought it into existence. Wigle Whiskey is an American small batch whiskey distillery in the Strip District neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Wigle began operations in 2011 and opened its doors to the public in March 2012, making it the first distillery to open in Pittsburgh since Joseph S. Finch's distillery closed in the 1920s.
The name itself is a declaration of allegiance to a particular strain of American history. The distillery is named after Philip Wigle, a man convicted of treason in 1794 and sentenced to hang for his actions in the Whiskey Rebellion, wherein Alexander Hamilton levied the first excise tax on whiskey, triggering four years of protests and riots. Wigle was one of the Whiskey Rebellion's earliest agitators, and George Washington — despite his outrage — later pardoned him, fearing that hanging the rebel would stir a civil war in the young nation. The irony that Wigle Whiskey now celebrates Washington's own favorite drink is not lost on anyone paying attention.
The founders understood from the start that they were not just opening a distillery — they were reopening a chapter of American history that had been largely forgotten. Throughout the 1700s and 1800s, Western Pennsylvania was the epicenter of American whiskey production. By 1808, Allegheny County was producing half a barrel of whiskey for every man, woman, and child living in America, and the gold standard of that era was a spicy, earthy rye whiskey called Monongahela Rye. Wigle's entire operation is an attempt to reclaim that heritage, one barrel at a time.
The distillery operates as a true grain-to-glass producer. Wigle is a scratch grain-to-glass distiller, sourcing nearly all of its ingredients within a 100-mile radius from Pittsburgh, obtaining grains from nearby farms in Washington County, Pennsylvania, and eastern Ohio, and mills, distills, and serves its products on site. The founders also changed the regulatory landscape to make their operation possible. The founders of Wigle Whiskey were instrumental to the passage of Pennsylvania House Bill 242 in December 2011, establishing a new distillery license allowing craft distilleries to sell their own products onsite, which led to the growth of craft distilleries in Pennsylvania.
The awards have followed. The distillery has been recognized as the most awarded craft distillery in the country by the American Craft Spirits Association in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021, and 2025. That kind of sustained recognition, across multiple categories and multiple decades, speaks to something more than novelty — it reflects a distillery that has genuinely mastered its craft while staying true to a regional identity.
George Washington, Distiller: The Other Side of the Founding Father
The image of George Washington as whiskey producer doesn't fit neatly alongside the marble busts and the dollar bill portrait, but it is historically accurate and commercially documented. George Washington began commercial distilling in 1797 at the urging of his Scottish farm manager, James Anderson, who had experience distilling grain in Scotland and Virginia. Washington was initially skeptical but soon granted permission to build the 2,250-square-foot distillery, making it among the largest whiskey distilleries in early America.
The operation scaled rapidly. In 1797, urged on by Anderson, Washington ramped up production and the distillery produced 600 gallons; by 1799, the year Washington died, it produced nearly 11,000 gallons, making it the largest whiskey distillery in America at that time. By 1799, George Washington had become one of the largest whiskey producers in the United States, producing nearly 11,000 gallons valued at $7,500 — approximately $120,000 today.
The recipe Washington used has been recovered from the historical record with impressive precision. The mash bill was discovered by researchers examining the distillery ledgers for 1798 and 1799, and his whiskey consisted of 60% rye, 35% corn, and 5% malted barley. The records also indicate that Washington's whiskey was distilled at least twice before being sent to market, and in Washington's time, whiskey was not aged and was sold in its original form.
Washington's relationship with the Monongahela region wasn't just commercial — it was personal and complicated. The Whiskey Rebellion pitted him against the very farmers and distillers whose region he had traveled through, admired, and provisioned himself from. He sent troops to crush the rebellion in 1794, then pardoned its leaders — including Philip Wigle — recognizing that the economic grievances of Western Pennsylvania's distillers were real, even if their methods were not. That he was himself a major whiskey producer at the time only deepens the historical complexity that Wigle Whiskey has built its entire identity around.
Today, Mount Vernon operates a reconstructed distillery on the grounds of Washington's estate. After close to a decade of archaeological excavation and reconstruction planning by historians and historical trade interpreters, the building began operation in 2007 using five copper pot stills on the footprints of the original ones. Historic trades staff use Washington's original recipe and traditional 18th-century methods to produce the rye whiskey, grinding grains in Washington's water-powered gristmill, setting the mash in 120-gallon wood fermentation vats, and running wood-fired copper pot stills. In a bill signed by Governor Terry McAuliffe, George Washington's Rye Whiskey was recognized as the official spirit of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Rye's Rightful Claim on America's Whiskey Identity
The timing of Wigle and the Heinz History Center's Cherry Bounce collaboration lands in the middle of a broader national conversation about rye's place in American whiskey culture. For most of the 20th century, bourbon dominated the national narrative, while rye was treated as a bartender's workhorse — something you reached for when making a Manhattan, not something you sipped and contemplated. That calculus has shifted decisively in the past decade.
Rye whiskey has deep roots in American history, predating bourbon's rise to prominence, and George Washington himself operated one of the largest rye whiskey distilleries in the young republic at Mount Vernon. The spirit dominated American whiskey production through the 18th and 19th centuries before Prohibition nearly wiped it out. For Wigle, reclaiming that history isn't a marketing strategy — it's the founding premise of the entire operation.
Other distilleries are making the same argument with their own America 250 releases. WhistlePig Whiskey has followed other distilleries releasing celebratory whiskeys for the United States' 250th birthday and is also campaigning to make rye whiskey the official whiskey of the United States. "Rye isn't just part of American whiskey history — it is American whiskey history," said WhistlePig CEO Alex Roberts. WhistlePig unveiled two commemorative limited-edition releases and a nationwide petition to declare rye America's official whiskey, announcing the "Rye, White and Blue" campaign on April 22, 2026.
That campaign has a specific threshold built into it: the campaign centers on a petition co-signed by Max Miller, host of the YouTube series Tasting History, and if it reaches 1,776 signatures by July 4, WhistlePig has pledged to deliver it to Congress. The number of signatures required — 1,776 — is about as on-the-nose as it gets, but the underlying argument is serious. Rye whiskey was America's native spirit before bourbon ever existed, and the industry appears determined to make that case loudly and with full bottles.
Wigle's Americana Rye: Another Layer to the 250th Story
Cherry Bounce and the Heinz History Center event represent one prong of Wigle's semiquincentennial storytelling, but the distillery has been building toward this moment on multiple fronts. Wigle Whiskey launched Americana Rye, a limited-edition whiskey celebrating Western Pennsylvania's role in the birth of American whiskey, alongside a patriotic-themed pop-up bar.
Wigle released its Americana Rye whiskey on June 25, marking a return to the region's pre-Prohibition whiskey heritage and paying homage to Western Pennsylvania's role as the original center of American whiskey production, predating Kentucky's bourbon dominance by decades. The tasting notes situate the whiskey squarely in the Monongahela tradition: according to official tasting notes, the whiskey delivers "rich, complex rye whiskey with distinct notes of cinnamon and black pepper."
The bottle itself is a piece of Pittsburgh craft, featuring artwork by Pittsburgh artist Kim Fox of Worker Bird on each bottle. Wigle's COO Alex Moser put it plainly: "With every sip of Americana Rye, you're tasting history. This whiskey embodies the rebellious and entrepreneurial spirit of our region, and we're thrilled to bring that legacy to life."
The experiential component reinforces the point. Wigle transformed its pop-up bar at 2401 Smallman Street into "Stars, Stripes & Spirits," an Americana-themed venue operating Fridays and Saturdays from 5-11 PM, featuring vintage American decorations, bunting, and classic flags creating a nostalgic Independence Day atmosphere. It's a physical extension of the same historical argument the Cherry Bounce collaboration makes: that the spirit of America's founding era is not just a museum exhibit — it can be poured into a glass.
What the Partnership Means for Enthusiasts and the Industry
For whiskey drinkers who care about provenance and history, the Wigle-Heinz History Center collaboration represents a model worth paying attention to. Museum-distillery partnerships have typically been one-offs, curiosities that live and die with a single exhibition. What Wigle and the Heinz History Center have built is something more durable: a recurring relationship in which each new project deepens the historical argument rather than simply repeating it.
Wigle has partnered with multiple museums, including Pittsburgh's Mattress Factory and Carnegie Science Center, Cumberland's Allegheny Museum, and Washington, D.C.'s Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. The Smithsonian connection is particularly notable — it places Wigle's historical work in the same league as the nation's foremost cultural institutions and signals that the distillery's approach to whiskey as living history has credibility well beyond Pittsburgh.
Founders Mark Meyer and Meredith Meyer Grelli authored The Whiskey Rebellion & the Rebirth of Rye: A Pittsburgh Story, which explores rye's origins and the role Pittsburgh played in its rediscovery, while also providing a guide to making rye whiskey and recipes for cocktails. That book formalized what the distillery had always been doing in practice: insisting that Western Pennsylvania's whiskey heritage deserved the same serious historical treatment as anything that happened in Kentucky or Tennessee.
The Heinz History Center, for its part, brings institutional weight and a permanent collection that connects Wigle's spirits to a broader narrative of American history. The program sits within the History Center's year-long commemoration of the U.S. Semiquincentennial, in partnership with America250PA, which means the Cherry Bounce experience is not an isolated stunt — it's part of a sustained, multi-format effort to help Americans understand where they came from and what they built.
The Whiskey Rebellion Trail and Pittsburgh's Larger Legacy
Zoom out far enough and the Wigle-Heinz History Center partnership looks like one node in a larger network of historical whiskey recovery happening across Western Pennsylvania. Wigle actively supports the development of a Whiskey Rebellion Trail following the Great Allegheny Passage, a trail that extends from Pittsburgh through Southwestern and South Central Pennsylvania and Maryland. The trail connects to Mount Vernon, home to George Washington's homestead and the distilleries he owned, and Wigle has partnered with the Omni Bedford Springs Hotel in Bedford, Pennsylvania, a borough about 100 miles southeast of Pittsburgh where General Washington led his troops during the Whiskey Rebellion.
The trail represents something ambitious: a physical itinerary for understanding how American whiskey actually developed, from the frontier farms of the Monongahela Valley to the reconstructed copper stills at Mount Vernon. Every stop connects to a political, economic, or cultural event that shaped the country — the excise tax that sparked rebellion, the federal power that crushed it, the pardons that preserved the peace, and the distilleries that kept producing anyway.
For the distillery industry, the broader lesson of Wigle's approach is that historical authenticity can be a genuine competitive advantage. Wigle Whiskey has earned recognition as the Most Awarded Craft Distillery by the American Craft Spirits Association and ranks among USA Today's top 10 craft distilleries in America — not by chasing trends, but by planting itself so deeply in a specific historical identity that the awards became almost incidental. The Cherry Bounce collaboration with the Heinz History Center is the latest expression of that strategy, timed perfectly for a national milestone that invites exactly this kind of reflection.
As America marks 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the question of what this country's authentic distilling heritage looks like is more contested and more interesting than it has been in decades. Rye whiskey is pressing its claim. Pittsburgh is pressing its claim. And a craft distillery named after a man George Washington sentenced to hang — serving a drink George Washington packed in his canteen — is raising a glass to all of it. The irony is the whole point.
