About C. Cassis

C. Cassis was founded in 2020 by Rachael Petach in the Hudson Valley, New York, just a few miles from where the blackcurrants are grown. A hospitality professional with a long-standing love of gathering people around good food and drink, Rachael's path to cassis began in 2018, when six months pregnant and uninspired by the available alternatives, she started making her own cordials in her Brooklyn kitchen. She missed the cassis she had discovered while working on farms in France, and quickly found that most American cassis was either too sweet or too dated. So she made her own.

Blackcurrants were effectively banned from cultivation across much of the United States for nearly a century, restricted due to concerns about a fungal disease affecting pine trees. New York lifted the ban, and with it came the opportunity to grow the fruit close to home. C. Cassis sources its blackcurrants from regeneratively farmed partner growers in New York State, a commitment to sustainable agriculture that runs through every aspect of the operation.

The aperitif is made entirely by hand: fermentation, blending, and bottling all done in-house in Rhinebeck, NY. Lightly fermented blackcurrants are combined with wild honey, lemon verbena, cardamom, bay leaf, and citrus rind, producing something bright, tart, and subtly herbal at 16% ABV. What began in a kitchen and spread through a circle of friends now has a national following, available as both the flagship aperitif and the CC Spritz, a ready-to-drink canned version at 5.4% ABV.