Mad River Distillers Burlington — Local services in Burlington

Absolutely incredible. One word to describe this place is craft. Craft spirits, craft cocktails, craft bar supplies. Super friendly, knowledgeable and talented bartender/tasting guide/shopkeep. There are 3 different parts to this experience. The retail shop. The front of the space consists of a retail shop that has both their own products (clothing, spirits, bottled cocktails, and glassware). They also have a huge selection of bitters that exceeds any other store I've been to. Additionally they also have the highest quality selection of bar equipment I've seen at a store. Someone here is obviously a cocktail person. The tasting. For 6 dollars you get to choose four spirits (about half their lineup). Everything was at least good. The rye whiskey, however, was fantastic truly unique on its own or in a cocktail. The cocktails. Oftentimes these craft distillers go a little too far in trying to make sure everything is in house (whether by local rules or by trying to keep things fully "craft") of the two drinks I tried this was not the case they picked classic cocktails that accentuated their spirits with very subtle twists using their aforementioned selection of bitters. A great place for cocktail nerds and...

We hosted our pre-ceremony cocktail hour for our wedding party at Mad River a few weekends ago and it was perfect. Jesse and the whole team at Mad River put in such incredible attention to detail and were so generous to us in reserving their seated area for our party and having food samples waiting for us on arrival.

We were at Mad River nearly every weekend during the summer of 2021, before we moved out of Vermont, and we love the space, the staff, and their drinks. When Jesse heard we were coming back to get married in Burlington, he coordinated the cocktail hour so we could get our entire party a drink ticket in advance and surprised us with some extra special details. Mad River is our happy hour happy place in Burlington and we’re thrilled we got to spend some actual quality time with our close friends before the whirlwind of the ceremony and reception.

Jesse also coordinated with our caterer to build the “his and hers” cocktails. They were exactly what we wanted. We lost count of the number of guests who told us those were the best wedding cocktails they’ve ever had. Thanks for making it happen, and see you all soon,...

As a chef I have Mondays off and its hard to find stuff to do, many places close for monday. So me and my gf drove 2hrs to the mad river distillers tasting room in Burlington. We were very sad when we left. Can only order 1 or 2 cocktails from the menu because it was not Thurs - Sat. We had a flight containing 2 whiskeys and 2 rums. We did not enjoy the rum and the whiskey was good for it's age. The charcuterie and the service was the bad part. Our pretzels were burnt real bad and when we complained the server or bar tender said its ok. Its ok? No no mam its not i didnt drive 2hrs to pay 10bucks for burnt food. We paid full price and most likely will never return unless some one reached out. If the service was good there was no way I would have walked out with out some souvenirs. I also would have recommened the alcohol for use on the menu at the high end cocktail bar I manage. Maybe the manager doing paper work in the corner should keep an eye out. No info was offered on what we were drinking.... Like isn't that the point? I came to learn and learned probably...