Enjoyed: Saturday, July 5, 2025

Listed on the menu: Yes, on the online menu site, as “Burnside Old Fashioned”

Ingredients: Burnside bourbon (from Portland, Oregon), Angostura bitters, soda, all-natural Bordeaux cherry, orange twist

The occasion: After a several day visit with Daughter in Seattle, we rented a car and headed for the picturesque Oregon coast. I have a long-standing interest in the Lewis and Clark Expedition, probably because we live in Albemarle County, Virginia, the birthplace of both men, and the location of Thomas Jefferson’s home, Monticello. In fact, many of the artifacts sent back from the Expedition to Jefferson are still on display at Monticello. The initial details for the trip were drafted here, so going to the “edge of the continent” to see the terminus of the Expedition (“Ocean in view! O! the joy”) has always been a goal of mine. We stopped at several Lewis and Clark Trail points of interest near Astoria, such as Fort Clatsop and Cape Disappointment.

My rating: ***** out of 5. I wanted to try a local bourbon, so the Burnside was a logical choice. The drink was well-balanced, with the bourbon being the most prevalent taste. Burnside has a 70% corn mash bill, and the sweet notes were obvious. Since simple syrup was not listed as an ingredient, I wonder if the soda used (it must have just been a splash) was sweetened.

Final thoughts: We stayed two nights in Astoria, at the four-mile wide mouth of the mighty Columbia River. The city, the first permanent American settlement west of the Rocky Mountains, was founded in 1811 as a fur-trading outpost and named for tycoon John Jacob Astor, who was then the richest man in America. Astoria experienced a salmon canning boom in the 1870s and quickly became the salmon canning capital of the world. Unfortunately, over the decades, the salmon were over-fished in this area, and the last cannery closed in 1980. The remaining industrial buildings have been re-purposed into museums, shops, hotels, and restaurants, such as the Bridgewater Bistro. We happily dined at a table overlooking the river and the gorgeous sunset. Our AirBnB was likewise in a re-purposed building on Pier 12, so we were able to watch the shipping activity from the large picture windows in our suite of rooms–truly one of the most unique places we have ever slept!