The First of its Kind - Lost Lantern Whiskey’s New Tasting Room
Jan 29, 2024 07:31PM ● By MARIE EDINGER
WHAT IS AN INDEPENDENT
BOTTLER?
Nora Ganley-Roper is the co-founder
and general manager of Lost Lantern.
She explains that Lost Lantern is by
no means a distillery. Instead, it seeks
out the best whiskies from all over
the country and then bottles them as
a single cask or small blend. In some
cases, it will also blend whiskies from multiple distilleries, creating
something brand new. Everything goes under the Lost Lantern label.
“There are 2,600 distilleries across the U.S. and most of them are
regionally focused,” Nora explained.
“What we do is we help people find out
all the cool things that are happening
and highlight the distilleries.”
When something goes under the Lost Lantern label, it provides full transparency about where each whiskey comes from. To play on that point, the name “Lost Lantern” is an allusion to the company shining a light on fantastic distillers that might otherwise be lost.
“That’s why people seek us out; they know we are highlighting the best,” Nora said. “We’re not trying to pass it off as our whiskey. We say we’re curators, we’re blenders, here are all the distillers that distilled it— if you like it, go check them out. It’s a nice, kind of symbiotic relationship.”
Nora and her husband, Adam Polonski, co-founded Lost Lantern. Nora serves as the general manager, while Adam is the "cask hunter" and head of whiskey sourcing.Nora and Adam often thought about how there were no independent bottling companies in the U.S. like they had seen in Scotland. So, they decided to create their own.“It just became a thing where it was like, ‘We have to do this. It needs to exist. Let’s put all of our stuff in storage and travel around the country for eight months to make sure people will sell us whiskey,’” Nora said, laughing. “And the rest is history!”
A NEW TASTING ROOM
The couple’s venture got off to a rocky start due to launching during the pandemic. They’d intended their first bottled products to be released in April of 2020, but that was delayed until October. Now, they’ve got their feet on the ground and are trying something new: the very first Lost Lantern tasting room.
Most of Lost Lantern’s sales have been from New York and California. With the opening of the tasting room, they'll be able to focus on Nora’s home state of Vermont. She says that, so far, the local support has far exceeded her expectations.
The tasting room is set up so that people of all interests and knowledge can have an experience suited to their preferences. And for Lost Lantern fans, the tasting room is a haven for delicious memories.
“Even though we’ve been releasing our products since 2020, we’ve been saving a small number of bottles of each of our whiskies since then. So, for many our products, the only place to get them is our tasting room because they’re all sold out,” Nora said, talking about how exciting it is when she gets to tell someone she has the bottle they’re looking for.
Right now, the Lost Lantern tasting room is only open two days a week. You can check Lost Lantern's Instagram (@lostlantern_ vt) for days and hours, which vary by season. Moving forward, the couple plans to roll out classes. With a variety of tasting flights, merchandise, and bottles to purchase, there’s something for everyone at Lost Lantern's new tasting room.
